Subtlety
by embyr-75
Summary: He dreamt of her in the nights...sometimes of her sitting up on the mountain alone, waiting for someone whose face he was afraid to glimpse for fear it was not his. AsheixShad
1. Yearning

_A/N: Thank you very much for the feedback of this rough draft everyone, I'm very appreciative. I've settled on a title, for the time being, and am ready to update._

_Please continue to offer feedback and criticisms so that this romance can grow to the best it can be. I hope everyone enjoys._

Yearning

If anything had ever been apparent about the two of them, it was that they were polar opposites. She was a beautiful, wild sort of woman from the backlands, trained in combat as though she were a son. And he was a scholar. He was entirely not what she wanted, or needed; a reality that refused to reconcile itself with his heart. But he wanted what was best for her, and he had nothing to offer.

He had known Auru first and foremost as Princess Zelda's tutor, who had known his father. It was Auru that introduced him to Telma and Rusl, and a short while later they were to be joined by the respected offspring of a knight from the mountainous region. He bit his tongue when he learned it was a daughter. Could a young woman really be expected to traverse the hazardous cliffs of the mountains and the equally unsafe roads of Hyrule Field alone? When he finally made her acquaintance the answer was apparent. She lacked the kind of education he thought of as proper and kept it no secret that she found him longwinded, but he was taken. Everything about her impressed him and defied what he was told a woman should be. It was not long before he loved her. His heart badgered and prodded him when she sat near him, or when he knew she was travelling back to Snowpeak alone, or when there was no reason at all to think of her and he was trying to sleep. Her elusiveness was haunting.

Telma had told them about a brave swordsman to whom she had written and who would undoubtedly visit them soon. Jealousy welled unexpectedly in him when he heard her say that she had thought "Hyrule was empty of men of Valor." Could this swordsman have been the one who had everything he didn't, who could offer her everything she needed? Would the swordsman love her, cherish her, the way he would have, the way she deserved? But he watched them, and pried through the others when he felt he could do so unobtrusively, and there seemed to be nothing between them. It was Telma who asked her bluntly and he abandoned all gentlemanly morals to eavesdrop.

"I hardly have time for a man," she'd grunted dismissively over a mug of ale, "or need one, yeah?"

"You won't find one that handsome or capable in any province nearby, honey," Telma scoffed. "You should take the opportunity while you have it. You'll have time for him later!"

He felt color rise to his ears and buried his face in his father's book to hide it. But she didn't seem to heed Telma's advice, and, despite all he had convinced himself he would give up for her happiness, he was glad for it. It was selfish of him, he knew, to try to hold onto her when she would never need him, but he was too far-gone to help himself. At the very least, it was easier to be civil to Link when he didn't feel resentful of him.

One day, during a spring rain, Link laid siege to Hyrule Castle and then it was over. The Resistance separated. She gracefully exited his life like the briefest of winters, leaving no evidence she had ever been there but the memory of her. A kind of torture he had no name for set in, lingering like a fire that could not be doused. Nights and days and weeks blurred like a fan of turning pages; he would write Link sometimes, who spent his time traveling between Ordona and the castle where he had taken up a kind of fleeting residence, asking about the Oocca. He filled in the blanks of his father's work based on Link's accommodating replies, piecing together answers and questions that formed the greater picture for which his father had searched so long. Somewhere during the flurry of nights, days, and weeks, he received a reply from Link that simply said, "I've told you all there is to know." Unexpectedly, his heart cried out within him. He hadn't considered what he would do with himself when he had completed his father's research. Now that it had come to an end, he felt lost. He thought of her again – not that he'd ever truly stopped, but now he was dwelling on her in a daze.

His feet moved without his urging one day through the town streets, the first, frothy flakes of winter darkening his hair and clinging to his coat. Women wrapped in heavy shawls bartered in the alleys with butchers and woodsmen selling fresh timber, creating a hum that the cold and the snow dulled. The chill in the air made everyone's brows pucker unconsciously; the white mist that accompanied the snow hugged the town possessively, becoming a cloud through which everyone moved. The world was gray and white and unyielding, a slow-moving and silent stone that he carried in his mind while he secretly lived in the memory of her. An amber glow drew him until he stood in a familiar bar. There were a few patrons who kept to themselves, huddled around tables, unwilling to shed their coats for fear the door would open and let in a gust of cold, but otherwise the tavern was peaceful. He approached the bar absently and found the keeper's eyes; he wore the same pucker between his brows that everyone else was. It was winter, after all.

Her voice was uncharacteristically soft when she greeted him, her smile small. "I didn't expect to see you around here again, not without the others. Can I offer you an ale?"

He grimaced a little, tried to smile through it. "I don't really like ale."

"I know." She put down the mug she was drying and moved around the counter, inviting him to sit at a table with her. It was the same table he used to sit around with the other members of the Resistance; Telma took his usual seat, and he made sure to leave hers open, as though she might arrive. "What brings you this far into town?"

"I'm not really sure," he confessed, resting his mouth on his palm. "I was just trying to clear my head." It occurred to him that they rarely spoke, and never alone, and he found the silence uncomfortable. He cleared his throat and ventured as civilly as he could, "How is Renado?"

"The Shaman needs a more delicate woman than I'll ever be," she smiled kindly, lacing the word 'delicate' with a mild distaste. "How is Ashei?"

"Ashei?" He echoed. He realized he hadn't said her name since she left. It made his throat dry and he tried to swallow the discomfort. "We haven't been in touch."

Telma's mouth twisted and her eyes narrowed, confused. "Aren't you in love with her?"

He wasn't exactly sure how to answer that and kneaded the thumb and finger of his left hand. His kneejerk reaction was to deny it, but why? It seemed a childish thing to do, especially since he thought he'd never heard a statement so true in his life. His eyes widened a little behind his glasses before he looked down. His mouth twitched as something unintelligible tried to make its way out but failed to make it past his parched throat.

"I'm sorry," she said sympathetically, "It hadn't occurred to me that you were trying to keep it a secret. But I'm not blind, honey. I saw the way you stared after her the day she left for the mountains. I've never seen a man so crestfallen as you were that day."

"I must've looked pathetic," he mumbled, more to himself than to her. He clenched one fist, staring at the door shielding the tavern from the harsh winds outside and envisioning her walking out of it without looking back. "I'm such a coward."

"She isn't going anywhere," Telma said very quietly, playing with a pleat in her skirt. "The mountains aren't very far. Auru is going up in early spring to see Ashei's father. They're old friends, those two. He doesn't come down from the mountains much, what, with his injury. You could go along."

His heart leapt a moment at the suggestion. She made it sound noble in theory. He pursed his lips, trying to stop himself from injudiciously believing her proposal could work out by some divine miracle. "I'd have no excuse."

"Then tell her the truth."

"And what in Hyrule would motivate her to consider me?" His voice wasn't raised – his voice was almost never raised – but Telma could hear the disgust in his voice. "I have nothing she wants; I can't give her anything she needs. I read books and chase my dead father's dreams; I wouldn't know how to escort her home to see her father when she would miss him; I live above the city library and teach in the college when I'm bored; I have no trade, even. I live alone because that's what I'm good at doing. I've no valor at all, the only thing her father has taught her to value, and she'd think me pitiful for riding all that way only to hear her laugh at me."

Telma let him go on, let it all out of his system, before she replied in that uncharacteristic, mild voice of hers. "Shouldn't you let Ashei decide whether or not you have anything she wants? Do you really think she needs a big, strong man to guide her up the mountainside? And do you think she would fail to see the bravery necessary to take a ride that arduous towards an uncertain end?"

"Stop filling my head with ideas, Telma," he begged softly.

But she had already set wheels turning, set his heart pounding with prospects he hadn't let himself consider in a long time. She complied, sitting in silence with him. No one approached the bar for the rest of the evening, so she never got up. Slowly the tavern emptied, the thrumming murmur of her guests giving way to the hollow wind outside the bar. He stared through the table, aware that Telma was near him but not caring as he should. He played with her idea, like a cat playing with yarn, until he was the yarn, and the idea had become the cruel, agile cat. The candles were burning low when she finally stood.

"Go home," she urged him, smothering the sconces that littered the walls. "You have all winter to think about it. Auru will stop here before he leaves so you don't have to worry about missing him. Teach at your college, honey; read your books, think about it. Think about how much warmer winter would be if she were sleeping beside you at night."

He flushed at the suggestion as he stood, but said nothing. He couldn't deny that he had entertained the idea of her figure formed to his, asleep in his arms, sharing his bed. He strode to the door, tangled in his thoughts again, and then paused as he opened it to turn to his host. "Thank you for sitting with me tonight, Telma."

She only smiled and nodded. Louise, who had been hiding in the loft, jumped onto Telma's shoulder as he closed the door, staring after where he had been with wisdom that belied a cat.

He did think about it. He thought about it all night, and all the next day, and through every moment of winter. He imagined the ride through the damp, unsteady earth, the unrelenting spring rains, and the harsh mountain air that stayed frigid into the late days of the season. He imagined the look on her face when he rode in behind Auru, exhausted and worried, and the uncomfortable grin she would crack while she decided whether or not to laugh at him. He dreamt of her in the nights, sometimes of her reactions to his confession, sometimes of her face pressed into his chest to keep her nose warm on a particularly freezing night, sometimes of her sitting up on the mountain alone, waiting for someone whose face he was afraid to glimpse for fear it was not his. He would sit in the library with a book in his lap on the days when the snow kept him indoors, not reading any of the words that stared up at him. He was too distracted to teach willingly and the college didn't call for him. The wait for spring was long, but he feared its coming despite its lethargy. He thought of writing her instead so he wouldn't have to endure the look on her face when she grasped his intentions, but every letter he began ended up as ashes in his fireplace. No words scribbled on parchment could convey what he wanted to say; words out of his mouth would only be a little less awful.

He folded his glasses, set them on the nightstand, and stripped for bed one night; he tried falling asleep using only half the room he usually did, resting on his shoulder and imagining her in the empty space beside him. He stared into her eyes, followed the wave of her loosed hair over her moon-pale shoulder and then back up her throat to her lips. Could she ever feel anything but pity for him? Was there anything behind his clumsy exterior that she could possibly ever want? What could he offer her that would move her to give him something as exquisite as a chance to touch her pale lips with his own? It was hardly a gentlemanly thought to be entertaining, but he could think of little else that would make him feel so blessed as that would. He blinked her away and pressed his face into his pillow.

What if, beyond all sanity and reason, there was something he had, something she wanted? How would he ever find rest knowing he had never tried? Knowing that, by some miracle, she may have thought of him as more than a useless scholar, but he never even asked? He tried not to hope, he tried desperately not to hope, but it was a tiresome endeavor. He decided that he could not leave unanswered a riddle as powerful and mysterious as that. If she laughed at him, he would be ashamed, and if she felt pity for him, he would feel stupid; if he failed to ask, he didn't know what he would feel, but he feared that emotion. He had spent his life answering his father's questions, and it was time he sought the answer to one of his own.

Gradually the snow melted, leaving muddy puddles everywhere people wanted to move and a little less wetness on the routes they took instead. He found himself stomping through the murk and splashing around with the rest of them, heading for a bar he almost never visited and still trying to explain to himself why. Louise was on the floor, smiling up at him, when he opened the door. She meowed once in greeting and Telma turned.

Telma eyed him and his lack of equipment curiously. "You pack light."

He approached the bar and rested his chin on his hand, looking defeated. "What makes you think I'm even going?"

"I don't; I guess it was just wishful thinking."

He frowned unintentionally. "What makes you think I'm not?"

"Are you?" She didn't mask the excitement in her voice well, if she had even meant to, leaning forward expectantly and cracking an eager smile.

"Maybe. I don't know. Yes. I want to see her."

"There's nothing more alluring to a woman than a man who's in love with her," Telma confided with confidence. She was brimming with smugness. "She'll never be able to resist. I haven't seen anyone pine after a girl like you do."

"Jovani," he recalled to her bluntly, still looking conquered.

"He didn't have your endearing qualities, honey," she explained. She went on, "Auru wrote. He's expecting to get here in three days, and then he'll wait a day or two for good traveling weather. I already told him you're coming, so it would be best if you didn't change your mind before then."

"Telma," he sighed exasperatedly, but didn't reprove her further.

And four days later he was on a packhorse, listening to the dull, repetative _suuuck, plop,_ of eight large hooves trudging through a long winter's mud. Auru hadn't said much about the trip or even mentioned Shad's reason for accompanying him during his stay at the bar, and only made small talk and reminisced for the first leg of the journey. It was nice, he thought, to spend time with someone who enjoyed reading as much as he did for a while. They snaked a route along the border of the Eldin and Lanayru provinces, moving towards the mountain range that stood imperturbably between Snowpeak and Death Mountain.

Evening crept up on the riders slowly and finally, when the ground became sturdier underfoot, Auru, turning in his saddle, said, "We'll stop here. The footing will be too uncertain up ahead in the dark." His dismounted with a bit of a groan and began untacking his gelding. He smiled over his shoulder. "I am not as young as I used to be, it seems. I am tired of being old."

"I would hardly call you old, Auru," he tried to hedge.

"Nonsense, Master Scholar," he said good-naturedly, setting the saddle and bridle on a rock and tying his horse to a tree by halter and lead rope. When he had finished he eased himself on what dry ground he could find and sparked a fire. He reclined on a boulder and rested his eyes; Auru said, very quietly and very suddenly, so that he didn't know how to respond, "I think Ashei will be happy to see you again."

He turned over next to Auru's fire, his brows reclaiming their winter pucker, and eventually dreamt of her.


	2. Adjectives

_A/N: Here's another installment for you all to devour. __Please keep in mind that this was originally written to be a Oneshot, so if the chapter breaks seem odd it's because they weren't there before._

_So we finally get to see Ashei and Shad have a conversation! Scary. O.O_

_Also, you may have noticed that I never used the names "Shad" and "Ashei" in the narrative of my last chapter (but once, and I did it begrudgingly for sentence clarity). This was on purpose. =P_

_So eat it up and be sure to tell me what's right and wrong with it, if you would be so kind. Thank you!_

Adjectives

They made good time despite the unpredictable footing, reaching the stony roots of the range in just two days. The next morning they started climbing the pass and by mid-afternoon the village was in sight. It sat in a clearing with no incline, speckled with sturdy houses and fire pits. The air smelled of smoke and roasting meats. His heart thrummed uncomfortably in his chest as he scanned the area, absorbed in the faces that turned inquisitively at their arrival. They dismounted and some children took their horses; the moment felt strangely ethereal. He'd spent all winter envisioning this day, and thus far it wasn't remotely as he'd imagined it. Every muscle in his body and every thought in his brain urged him to turn back, second-guessed every decision he tried to make, aimed to cripple him with uncertainty, but he forced his legs to carry him.

"Auru," bellowed an unfamiliar, booming voice. A man with black hair the color of raven plumes and a streak, snow-colored, running from hairline to nape waved from atop the three steps that led to his front door. The man favored one leg greatly, leaning upon a weathered old crutch. "I thought you'd never come!"

At the base of his stairs, hand-feeding a furry creature he'd never seen before but in books, knelt Ashei, and he felt the fire that could not be doused suddenly wash out of him. He had grown so used to its presence that to have it wrestled away was startling. She eyed him curiously as the two older men reunited; he didn't hear a word of their greeting; it was drowned out by the blood rushing through his ears. He commanded his legs forward again as they struggled to disobey. She rose and met him half way across the expanse between them.

"Shad. I didn't hear you were coming this way," she said. He had to force himself to exhale steadily. It had been so long since he'd heard his name on her voice; he'd forgotten how tremulous it made him feel. "What are you doing in the pass?"

How quickly a thousand lies jumped into his mind, each one sounding more plausible than the next! He had to beat them all down, strangle the urge to hold back, to save face. She deserved the truth, no matter how ridiculous it made him seem. "Actually," he said, his voice sounding so much stronger than he felt, "I came to see you."

There it was, in the open; well, part of it, and if she were audacious she could fill in the rest. Everything he dreaded most had the potential to come together into one hideous nightmare at this crucial moment. It was the crossroads of his existence as he knew it, and he had stepped out into it like an intrepid fool. Then, in a merciful and truly unexpected gesture, she smiled. His heart became a bird in his ribcage.

"Ashei!" the voice boomed again; this time he was waving them inside the house. Auru had already disappeared, his silhouette barely visible before their fireplace.

"Come inside," Ashei suggested, gathering up the furry animal that was trying to climb her leg and letting it perch its long, lithe body over her shoulders and behind her neck. "I'll introduce you to my father, yeah?"

"Yes," Shad said, feeling whole again like he hadn't felt in nearly a year. "I'd like that." He refrained from adding "immensely," with some effort.

She led him up the steps, letting the creature crawl down her arm and scamper across the floorboards towards the sitting area where Auru and her father already were. Its short legs gave it an amusing, rocking gait that made Auru smile as he invited it onto his lap. Shad ran a hand through his damp hair, more out of his element than he had ever been and feeling completely ignorant of it. He watched her move, so graceful and resigned, across the room; her raven hair was knotted behind her head, her bangs shoved to one side, the long shirt and leggings she wore a simple combination of earthy browns. Her bare hands, which he was seeing now for the first time, were more feminine than he would have imagined, given her prowess with weapons.

She greeted Auru with a simple head nod and then proceeded with the introductions. "Father," she said as he slowly eased himself into a chair, juggling the arm rests and his crutch, "This is Shad. Another member of the Resistance." There it was again – his name, spilling off her tongue. Each time she said it, it felt as though he had never heard it before, a word foreign and tantalizing.

"It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance," Shad said quickly, awkwardly offering his hand as he pulled himself out of his thoughts of the man's daughter. Her father gripped firmly and gave him his undivided attention for about a second; he'd never felt a second so long.

"It's Kroe. Auru says good things about you."

"That's very kind of him," Shad muttered when the animal abandoned Auru's lap in favor of standing on its hind legs and resting its paws on his thighs. It was shaped like an otter, but had sharp teeth and claws that didn't lend themselves to its otherwise overwhelming cuteness. "Um. And this is?"

"Lera," Ashei explained, picking her up and cradling her in the crook of her arm.

He tried not to stare, but it was difficult. He took a seat on the couch next to Auru across from Kroe and Ashei knelt in front of the fireplace with Lera in her arms. The older men reminisced for hours, using Shad as an excuse to retell their favorite stories. Ashei got up near sunset to make dinner wordlessly and served them all without interrupting. Darkness slid over the windows and through the glass into the house until only the fireplace was lit and everything else cast long shadows. Auru and Kroe didn't seem anywhere near through; Ashei, her back pressed against one side of the hearth, gestured for him to leave the couch and sit with her. He left the conversation as discreetly as he could; the others didn't seem to notice. When he had knelt on the floor beside her she passed Lera into his arms and grinned when he struggled with her mass a little. Eventually Lera curled in the square of his arms and laid her head back so he could stroke her soft chin. The orange cloth of the fire shuddered and snapped, splashing light and shadows over the three of them. Aside from the occasional guffaw, Auru and Kroe kept their conversation to a dull murmur.

Lera purred. Shad looked up slowly; Ashei was watching the flames dance on his spectacles. He had nothing to say, for once, but the silence didn't bother him nearly as much as it should have. He was too comfortable to care. He imagined it wasn't the flames on his glasses she was watching, but his eyes.

"She likes you," Kroe muttered. Shad nearly swallowed his tongue and quickly averted his gaze from Ashei's to stare at him. Then he realized he meant Lera. "She doesn't usually take to strangers like that."

There was a strange lull to the rhythm of mountain life that Shad couldn't put his finger on; perhaps it was Ashei that was making him so complacent. If that was the case, he didn't know how he could face going back to the empty commotion of the city without her. He would ask her to come; he would find some way to do it without sounding completely ridiculous. He winced as he practiced in his head. Ashei noticed.

"What?"

Shad brought himself back to the present and met her rapt eyes. He shook his head a little and turned to watching his fingers scratch Lera's chin. "I was just thinking about what a fool I am."

"It would take a man greater than a fool to realize that he is one," she disagreed. "What fueled that train of thought?"

"You'll laugh if I tell you," he promised.

"Good. I love to laugh."

That wasn't the traditional response, but then again this was Ashei. It made him smile. What made people so paranoid about saying what they really thought that they devoted an entire social form to what should be said instead? What constituted the bounds of etiquette? She would never demonstrate that kind of conformity. He would never want her to. He liked knowing that he could always believe that whatever came out of her mouth was the same as what sprouted in her head. Trying to differentiate between the two was taxing, and sometimes frightening, especially when it came to women. He wished he could be as honest as she was.

He began, smirking, "I was thinking – and this is a lie, by the way – that I've gone and made a nuisance of myself by coming to visit without telling you."

She accepted that reply with a crooked grin. "Couldn't handle being laughed at?"

"Not after such a long day," he conceded.

"Amuse me tomorrow then, yeah?"

The prospect of being with her the next day – and that she had indirectly asked him to be with her – thrilled him. He nodded, and their conversation reverted to silence again. A little later Ashei left to make up a place for him and Auru to sleep. When Kroe felt himself nodding off he retired, and the others followed suit. Village life started early; Auru and Shad woke to a laid out breakfast and an empty house.

"They'll be back in a little while," Auru said, sitting at the table and helping himself to the dried fruit, cheese, fish, and bread arranged in the center. "Kroe and I were going to spend some time on the lake today. You're more than welcome to join us – you can bring a book if you aren't interested in the fishing, but I can't guarantee you'll be able to read over all the noise we'll make. I'm sure Ashei would show you around the village if you say please. You picked a feisty one, if you don't mind my saying so."

Shad flushed a little as he nibbled on a wedge of cheese. "I wonder about the kind of mess I've gotten myself into coming all this way," he confessed. "You know she hardly knew I existed but for all the time I spent helping Link into the City in the Sky."

"Kroe would have something to say about that," Auru mused. "Ashei's mother was beautiful, among a hundred other good qualities, but she had so little in common with him, and he only coveted her from afar for years. She was a city girl, used to luxury and intimidated by a lot of dirt, and Kroe worked in her father's stables, while he squired, for a little extra money. She never even noticed him. But he kept at it. And soon she was living in the mountains, among the woodsmen and barbarians! Her family couldn't believe it." He chuckled, watching memory. "But she loved him."

"Ashei would hate the city," Shad frowned absently.

"She sticks around to help her father," Auru murmured, "but I don't think she's fond of the simplicity here. Young people want adventure. Old people do, too, but we get tired too easily." Lera pounced on the table out of nowhere, snagged a fish between her teeth, and cantered away. Auru smirked, unperturbed. "Relax, Shad. Lera likes you, and as I understand it she has excellent taste in men. That has to count for something."

"I only wish I had your confidence, old friend." He tilted his chair back on its rear legs gently, staring out a window. Lera's claws sounded on the floorboards as she pounced back a few minutes later and she scrambled up to Shad's shoulders, forcing him to lower his chair to keep his balance. He decided he wasn't hungry. "I suppose I'm off to explore. Thank you."

Auru nodded as he dug into the loaf. Shad stood and headed outside, squinting when the warm sunlight struck his face. Ashei was splitting wood on one of the community blocks just beyond her yard and Kroe was helping one of the neighbors steady a nervous colt for the shoer. She even made splitting logs look like a dance. Shad sat on the grass, Lera still crouching on his shoulder. Once Ashei was done with all the wood in her pack she stowed it again and headed back towards the house. Under the sunlight her hair shone the most brilliant ebony he'd ever seen. When she got near she slung the bundle off her back, laid it against the house, grabbed her bow and quiver near the staircase, and squatted next to him.

"I was wondering where you got off to," she told Lera, offering her an arm to climb up, which she accepted. She said to Shad, "Come for a walk with me. I'll show you the mountain."

He didn't want to start the day off badly by opening his mouth and saying something stupid, so he just did as he was told and smiled. She pointed out the large barn that everyone in the village used; she showed him the wild mountain goats that they wrangled when it was milking time, unlike any Ordon goat he'd ever seen; she let Lera run amok through the budding prairies and picked him the sweetest smelling and the rarest wildflowers for him to inspect; she climbed a tall tree after Lera and threw down to him some of the strange fruits she found growing near the top, which, to his great delight, he caught. Finally she brought him to a jutting cliff overlooking a basin and its falls to rest. She undid her hair while he watched the water for a while and braided it, shrugging off her bow when it got in the way.

Shad laid on his back and listened to the hypnotizing rush. "Is there anything you don't know?" he teased, his eyes closed to the sun, unusually warm for an early spring day in the pass. "I've never met anyone who could show me so many things I've never seen."

"I'm sure your college taught you more interesting things, yeah?"

He turned his head to her, watching her fingers twirl expertly as she weaved her braid. He said honestly, "Not really."

"Don't be so gracious," she demanded, struggling with the tie at the end of her hair. "I know you think I'm uneducated." When he went to object, she interrupted, "It's ok; I think you're uneducated, too."

He only smiled, still wary of saying anything too moronic.

Her hair came undone at the end when she couldn't tie it fast enough and she started over. "The mountain is nice enough. It's home. But it gets boring, especially after joining the Resistance. Splitting wood is only entertaining for so long." She asked, holding the end of her braid behind her towards him, "Would you mind?"

He sat up, his hands moving towards her nape shakily. He pinched his brows angrily, mentally commanding them to be still. He took the tie from her with one hand and held the end of her silky hair with the other.

"Don't think me incompetent," she demanded. "It's a shorter tie than I'm used to."

"Oh," he chuckled irreverently, determinedly fastening her braid, "I think you many things, and incompetent is certainly not one of them."

"Like what?" she said when he was done, turning around to face him.

He knew he was going to say something brainless! He tried desperately to meet her eyes but had to keep looking away, feigning interest in the surroundings; her eyes burned him and he felt color rising to his ears. He grasped for something complimentary but not awkward and finally decided, glancing up cautiously, "Like, fascinating."

She tilted her head curiously. She said, in a mocking tone he thought was rude, "That's vague."

He retorted, "So are you."

It made her laugh. His heart raced at the sound of it; he loved it. He would make a fool of himself on a regular basis if it meant he could listen to it.

"Anything else?"

"Um," he hedged, unable to keep a nervous smile from his mouth. "Yes."

She rested her chin on her fist expectantly. He laughed quietly, trapped between the rock and the proverbial hard place. She seemed to have no trouble badgering him for information, which information could potentially reveal his shocking intentions at that, and here he had no immediate prospects of learning much about her. The fact that she was curious about what he thought of her at all was interesting, given that he knew her to care little about what others thought, but he tried to remain focused and converse strategically. His tactics may have been transparent, but his time constraints were forcing him to compromise.

"For every question you answer," he proposed slowly, "I'll offer another adjective."

"Fine," she decided after a moment's indecision. "I like games."

He laid back down while he thought of how to phrase into inquiries the dozens of things he was wondering about her in that particular moment. "How old were you when your father taught you archery? You're an excellent shot."

"Five."

"Five?" he blurted, gawking a little.

"It was the year my mother died."

"I see. Do you remember her much?" he asked, thinking of his own dead parent.

"Adjective," she demanded.

"Oh, right." He quickly paged through the surge of words in his head, most of which were incriminating. He smirked smugly, "Competent."

She scowled, and then said evenly, "Yes, I remember her. Adjective."

He laughed once and went through the new tumble of words. "Impressive." It was harmless enough.

She scoffed. "Like I haven't heard that one before."

"And what do you like to do for fun?" he went on, trying to sound casual as his level of engrossment steadily rose.

"Riding," she said without hesitation. "I trained my horse myself, from filly to mare. And reading."

He was surprised again. She was _always_ surprising him. "Reading?"

"Just because I live in the mountains doesn't mean I don't know how to read, you Neanderthal."

"No, I meant… I didn't mean to imply you didn't know how," he explained. "You're just good at so many other things; I thought you might find reading boring."

"I miss your library," she admitted. She looked for just a second like she'd been caught confessing something awful and said, to change the subject at the very least, "Adjective."

"Complicated."

"Your adjectives are predictable."

"We could stop, if you like," he gambled.

She looked out to the waterfall. "Question."

He rejoiced inwardly; he'd never felt so triumphant. He dug a little deeper, masking what he really wanted to ask her with something much more informal. "If you miss the library, why don't you move to the city?"

She frowned pensively. "My father. He'd be alone if I left, and now that his leg's all busted the chores are harder for him. I know he could get on without me, but… I'd feel selfish leaving him for some books."

"I brought some books with me. You can have them."

"Adjective."

He stared at her thoughtfully for a moment. She would get angry with him for saying something that appeared obvious, but it was a new notion to him. "Selfless."

When she met his eyes she refrained from complaining. He couldn't hide the admiration when he said it, and it made the remark more than acceptable for some reason. "Next."

He needed something that would reveal more about her at once. She was leaving a breadcrumb trail for him that he was too impatient to follow. He tried the all-encompassing, "And what about your future? In, say, the next five years? Or ten?"

"With my father, I suppose, until… well, I'm not waiting for a knight in shining armor or any such idiotic notion. But if I come across the right person someday I'll marry. Maybe have a daughter and teach her to handle a sword as well as any boy. I want to spend some time with the Zoras. Their culture intrigues me." She paused, but he was waiting for more. She demanded stubbornly, "Adjective."

He shrugged. "Practical."

"I live with my father; one of us has to be."

"He seems a practical man," Shad objected.

"It isn't that he's impractical, exactly," she explained, her voice a tad quieter. "He just fails to think things through sometimes. He'd have me running off, deserting him and chasing every little thing that caught my interest like a child after a hare, because that's what he did at my age. He wants good things for me, and he pushes practicality aside when he thinks it stands in the way of my happiness. But it doesn't. I am happy."

"Are you?" He recognized the impudence of his own words too late. But it truly concerned him, whether or not she was. If she really was happy, then perhaps he had no business interfering with her situation. Her happiness was the most important thing.

"I'm happy to give something back to him, after all he's done for me," she replied. So her life had room for improvement, she seemed to imply; whether or not he had any business trying to steer her life in his direction was still another question, one he was afraid to answer. "Adjective."

He closed his eyes and listened to the rushing again. Talking to her made him feel alive. Every nerve in him was sensing differently. It was like he'd never breathed before; the air tasted sweeter, the sunlight felt softer. No other words came to mind.

He said, "Beautiful."

He tried inhaling the careless word as his mouth formed it to no avail. If he hadn't felt her eyes on him he would've smacked himself for blathering so thoughtlessly. Somehow it hadn't sounded incriminating in his head. He managed to keep his face still but was shouting at his stupidity on the inside. She said quietly, "I've heard that one before, too. But never from a scholar."

He wasn't sure what to make of her response. He tried to meet her eyes, but they were in her lap. Lera came bounding back from hunting rodents in the woods and used Shad's stomach as a springboard to Ashei's shoulder. It shoved the air out of him and Ashei laughed; something like a sigh washed over him again at the sound of it. He asked very quietly, "Shall I ask another?"

"No," she said. "Let's go back. I'm hungry."

She would run ahead often on the trek back to the village, to chase Lera or reach the crest of a hill to peek the view. The winds picked up, chilling him. When they reached the house the sun was setting and Auru and Kroe had already returned and were boiling a chowder. The smell of minced spices and fresh fish made Lera lethargic with hunger. Ashei skipped the small talk and went straight to her room. Kroe made a face when he heard her door snap shut but didn't accuse Shad of anything. She emerged later after everyone had taken a bowl and served herself some. She sat on the floor with Lera again even though there was room at the table and fed her meat between mouthfuls.

"How long are you staying?" Kroe asked, stirring his chowder.

"Two more days; three, if it rains," Auru said.

Shad felt his morale sink at the prospect of leaving. Then again, Ashei had clammed up after his witless remark and might have stayed mute for the rest of his visit for all he knew. Why hadn't he had the sense to keep quiet? It was too rewarding to be himself with her. Well. Except for now. He watched her feed scraps to her pet. His nerves were still livewires, only now they seemed attuned to the negative. He guessed silence was her version of dishonesty. To have the pleasure of her company wrested away from him felt unusually cruel. He stole a glance at her; she looked pensive. Her eyes suddenly flicked up to his and he set his face rigidly while he fought the urge to look away.

"How was the basin?" Kroe asked conversationally.

"Nice," she said, moving her fingers deftly before Lera's teeth snapped over them along with the fish they were holding.

"What do you think of our mountain, Shad?"

"It's outstanding," he said, ripping his eyes away from her begrudgingly. Stupid confines of city notions of politeness! He was such a slave to them. "Really; I've never seen anything like this place."

"You're welcome to stay longer, if your schedule allows," Kroe went on, letting his eyes slide gently towards his daughter to gauge her response. She didn't react; she was making Lera perform for her tidbits.

Shad beat back the obsessed part of him that was ready to leap for joy. He had no business subjecting them to his company any longer than Auru and he had to get back to reality sometime. How much longer could he really stay? Two more days? And what would that accomplish, if his time with Auru wasn't enough? "That's very kind of you. No, I think I need to get back to town soon." He smiled weakly, "Get back to a place where I feel educated."

"Education is nothing more than a fancy word for how familiar you are with your surroundings," Kroe said dismissively. He went on, and Shad got the distinct feeling Kroe wasn't talking to him, "Once you've learned everything there is to know about a place it's time to move on, or you won't get any smarter. Unless you're my age," he snorted, "then it's nobody's business how smart you are and you can do whatever in Nayru's name you please. But I hear you've done quite a bit of traveling, Shad. I understand you've done some impressive work."

"Following my father's notes, yes," he conceded, "wandering around looking for the answers that weren't in my library. They were all right in front of me; I just couldn't figure it out on my own. It turns out it was all of it much bigger than I was. I never would have been able to complete the puzzle if it hadn't been for Link. Imagine, two generations of exploration would have been rendered useless if Telma hadn't introduced me to just the right person." He stopped, thinking of someone she had introduced him to that felt even more right. He glanced at Ashei again. She was looking at him, too, like she'd been listening; he thought her eyes looked just a tad wider than they usually did. He stumbled in conclusion, "My part to play wasn't all that interesting. Auru shouldn't have made it sound exciting."

"I didn't hear from Auru," Kroe amended. "Ashei told me."

His voice drained out of him a little. More quietly, he muttered, "Ashei shouldn't have made it sound exciting."

The sun had gone down while they'd eaten and the moon was steadily climbing over the ridge. Auru stretched, rising from his chair. "If we're going to catch the big one, we should get an early start."

"Right," Kroe agreed, easing himself out of his chair and grabbing his crutch from the end of the table, "The big one! Don't wait up for us, kids."

"More fishing?" Shad exclaimed incredulously.

"We saw a Hylian Loach the size of the rowboat today," Auru smirked. "There's nothing like the thrill of the hunt – spying a fish you've got to have and waiting all day to catch it."

"Nothing like it – not when you're our age," Kroe muttered, hobbling towards the hall.

"Getting up before dawn," Auru continued whimsically, unperturbed, "sitting in the miserable cold and the early morning mist, drowning in dew, waiting all day for a fish that probably won't bite; there's nothing like it. It isn't a practical waste of time, but that hardly stops people from doing it."

"Fair enough," Shad breathed, bidding him goodnight. The house sounded eerily quiet while his heavy steps sounded down the hall. Ashei stood when his door closed and walked around the table, Shad's eyes trailing her every step, and took the seat next to him. He watched the side of her face while she settled Lera, who was mischievously gnawing on her fingers. His voice was hushed to match the volume of the house. "You seem preoccupied."

"I am," she answered just as quietly. "A little."

"I'm sorry if I spoke out of turn," his mouth twitched down. "It was stupid of me."

"You didn't say anything wrong," she explained. "But it was a surprise, hearing it from you."

His heart rushed in his chest for a few beats and then softened into a dull, quick throbbing. They were talking again, which he was happy for, but she'd admitted that it was what he'd said that had upset her, and that sent another vortex of questions spinning in his head. She seemed to have an affinity for baffling him. He let his curious nature take over, since restraint wasn't going to get him much of anywhere, not on his timetable. Saving face was sort of out the window already anyway. "Is a clumsy scholar really less apt to find you beautiful than any other man?"

"The dainty, blonde sophisticate _would_ be more traditional," she hedged, leaning her chair back with one foot on the leg of the table.

A smile spread over his mouth at the notion; how could she think that there was any man that didn't find her irresistible? He couldn't wipe it off his face so he stopped trying and focused instead on submerging the urge to reach out and stroke her cheek. He let a small laugh escape his lips and said, "A woman like you dismisses tradition, I think."

She met his eyes and studied them; he wished she could see into his soul through them, see all the things he was feeling but wasn't brave enough to be forthright about. She said, "Come for a walk with me."

"It's dark," he objected, but she was already on her feet.

"The moon will be full tomorrow night," she said; she looked wistful. "The mountain really lights up in the moonlight."

As he had no desire to be parted from her, he went.


	3. Incorrigible

_A/N: First of all, an enormous Thank You to everyone who took the time to review this story. It really means a lot (and keeps me focused on my writing)._

_Before I go on with chapter three, I wanted to respond to a valid point raised in a review by **Knight on Bald Mountain**. It reads, in part, "Your version of Ashei befuddles me a bit. From my experience in the game (and research of her) I know she's a strong-willed woman, trained by her meticulous knight-father, with bad manners (and knowledge of them), so it puzzles me why she comes off as more of just a regular woman who just so happens to be given skills normally given to that of a man."_

_I believe that the common understanding that Ashei is a bad-mannered individual primarily stems from her introduction in Telma's bar, where she says of her upbringing, "__Of course, lessons in common courtesy were not part of the regimen, so forgive me if I come off as rude, yeah?_" But you will notice, upon inspection, that she actually says "Forgive me if I come off as rude," which indicates to me that she isn't necessarily a rude person, as might be inferred, but rather that her rudimentary understanding of social etiquette might make her come across that way. Furthermore, her interactions with Link (after she's aware of his identity) do not come across as bad mannered to me at all, and she seems a pleasant enough, and well-spoken, individual.

_As it just so happens, I'm writing a parallel story to this one in my spare time that follows **Ashei**, rather than Shad, through this romance. A "Midnight Sun," if you will, for those in the know. This story will be much more revealing when it comes to her thought-processes and personality, much as this story goes inside the mind of Shad._

_And as many of us know from experience, being in love can cause an invidivual to beat back cumbersome habits, if we perceive them unnattractive to the object of our affections, that we might not otherwise have tried to change. So perhaps Ashei is biting her tongue now and again. I guess we'll find out when I publish the parallel fiction. =)_

Incorrigible

Lera disappeared into the sheet of night, the only sign she was near the rustling of the grass. All the colors of the mountain changed in the swathe of moonbeams. The wind was more persistent, coloring their cheeks a crisp pink as it whipped by. The snow that still clung to the peak of the mountain glowed a radiant white. Ashei's skin glowed, too. She still hadn't explained how he had upset her. He was curious but afraid to pry.

The moon blanched everything, a solitary, lidless eye hanging in the blank night. Had he really only been with her one day? How had she bewitched him so quickly? The milky skin of her shoulder blades appeared and disappeared beneath the tangle of her braid, which fell, sometimes straight and sometimes not, into the scooped back of the shirt she wore. At the crest of a hill she stopped to survey the divergent paths and inhaled deeply of the night air.

She asked, "Which way?"

He ripped his eyes away from her shoulders to answer. There were a few trails, all of them unfamiliar, dipping down the knoll. He decided the choice couldn't have been very important, or she wouldn't have left it to him. He said, "North."

She led the way around a ridge littered with boulders, Lera pouncing out of the grass every so often to perch on one and take in the view. Ashei asked, shuffling up an incline, "Did you really come all the way up here to see me?"

"Yes," he said absently, watching the ash-colored boulders loom over the field.

"What if I hadn't been here?"

"I hadn't thought of that," he confessed. He put his hand against the cold stone when he passed one and wondered at its smoothness. He thought of her skin again, of how he'd never touched it. "It was really a matter of deciding whether or not I was going to come up; the possibility of you not being here when I arrived hadn't really crossed my mind."

"It was a hard decision?"

"Sort of," he mumbled, sure that the conversation was taking a turn for the incriminating.

"Why?"

She had stopped and turned, and while he hadn't noticed Shad had closed the space between them. Her eyes were dark as pitch in the moonlight. He frowned unintentionally. "It's complicated."

"Too complicated for me to understand?"

"No, I didn't mean to imply that."

She turned without pressing. The knoll went up and grew over a boulder, its long grass hanging over the front of the rock face like disheveled hair, and Ashei sat and let her legs dangle over the verge. The view of the slope ahead of them, all alight in moonbeams, shuddered in the wind.

She made a sound like a muffled laugh, but she was scowling. She said finally, "I don't understand you."

He looked away to hide the pain in his eyes, in case she could see them past his lit spectacles. It occurred to him as he interpreted his own reaction that he wanted nothing more than to be known by her, really and truly, so that she would know even the secret person he was on the inside. It was hard to hear that she found him indecipherable. He did his best to muster a casual response. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I expect you to do one thing and then you always, always do another." She pursed her lips. "It's frustrating. People are usually so predictable."

He closed his eyes, letting a gust of wind spill over him. "Unpredictable." He took a deep breath and let it out; it sounded to his own ears like he was surrendering to something. "I have never, ever been called that in my entire life."

"You've probably spent your entire life with imperceptive people."

He doubted that. As far as he was concerned, everything he had done – even the odd things, like traveling all over Hyrule looking for legends – had been expected by those who knew him, who knew his father. Everyone said he walked, talked, and neglected responsibility like his father had, and he was glad for it, though they often meant it negatively. No one had acted the least bit surprised when he abandoned his schooling to finish his father's work, though they all made a show of disapproving terribly. His mother wasn't surprised, either, but she didn't seem disappointed like all her society friends did. And Ashei found him unpredictable? Was it because she expected him to be something immensely different from what he was? He wondered what sort of stereotype she associated him with, if not the one everyone else did.

"You never told me what you were thinking yesterday."

Lera slid to a stop between them, nearly tumbling over the ridge, giving Shad just enough time to process Ashei's accusation. He mumbled, "So I haven't."

He was filled with a horrible feeling. It was the desire to run away, he realized, and he clenched one fist in the grass at himself. Nothing he had learned about propriety or courting was doing him any good because Ashei wasn't subject to the rules of the society he was; it was more than infuriating, or confusing, it was like torture, trying to figure out what to say. It always sounded so appropriate when she told him the truth, so why was it so difficult for him to do the same? Why was the truth locked up in his chest, like some plague from which he was trying to protect her, when all she deserved was his honesty?

She was still waiting. He swallowed dryly; his tongue felt heavy in his mouth. He felt himself making decisions without his conscious approval, but he didn't try to fight it. Words and colors flashed through his mind, making him feel slower in both actions and perceptions.

"I was thinking about…" he let his eyes slide over the slope, take in the whitewashed tones. He was a selfish creature, he was realizing. If she would ridicule him for saying it, then so be it. He wouldn't be able to sway her if her opinion of him was bad in two days anyway, and if it was in the open and she wasn't opposed, the next two days could be better than he had hoped for. The words were resigned. "I was thinking about the reasons I came all the way up here, mostly. Thinking about how much I missed seeing you after the Resistance split; I was rehearsing things in my head, things I wanted to say to you. They sounded so utterly idiotic," he rolled his eyes heavenward as they replayed.

She reminded him grimly, "You said I would laugh."

He found himself staring, wondering why she hadn't. "I suppose I was wrong."

Silence set in again; he let his gaze slip from her face, which had turned out towards the plain, and saw that her hands were fists in the grass, too. Finally, she said, "You're incorrigible."

He gawked. "_Incorrigible_?"

"Unpredictable," she recited, "incorrigible. I've got more."

He clenched his jaw, watching the way her eyes stayed pointedly fixed on the horizon. He'd made her angry. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I should've known you wouldn't want to hear this."

Her eyes were on him again, all ablaze with something unfamiliar to him. If they had been anyone else's eyes he might have feared them, but as they were hers he only wondered at them. "It's your inability to say what you mean that I can't stand," she growled. "Why open your mouth at all if you aren't going to say what you mean to?"

His brow knit as he attempted to compute her indignation. He said, incredulous, as her logic snapped into place in his brain, "You're angry with me because I'm being too _subtle_?"

Her eyes widened quite suddenly and she gasped, outraged, "You're laughing at me!"

"I'm not," he protested, and simultaneously realized that he was wearing a huge smile. He insisted again, "I'm not."

She scowled.

He inhaled and heard his breath shaking. But now wasn't the time to be reserved. She was tired of waiting for him to be forthright and the prospect both thrilled and terrified him. He let his eyes fall and tentatively but determinedly moved one hand to take hers; he brought it to himself.

"I don't want there to be any mistaking," he began. He wanted to gauge the expression in her eyes but was afraid he might miss if he looked away; he brought her palm to his mouth and dropped the gentlest kiss on it. He summoned the last of his courage to look at her eyes. "You are the most exquisite creature I've ever known, and I came up the mountain because the torture of being separated from you was too painful for me to bear any longer."

The reticent, ebony pools of her eyes studied him with no discernable emotion. He thought she looked peaceful. After a moment she said, "You could've said as much when you arrived and saved me the time I spent dwelling on the uncertainty of your intentions."

He laughed at himself, excessively elated, and pressed his lips to the back of her second knuckles. He murmured into her skin, "I thought I was transparent."

"You were," she conceded. "But that's rarely enough encouragement in these sorts of affairs."

"Ashei," he whispered, reveling in the unguarded admiration he could finally use. Her name was a word more powerful than the magical ones built of Sky Writing, an ancient spell wrapped around an enigmatic, beautiful woman. And it had enchanted him completely.

She tilted her head. "What?"

"I just wanted to say your name."

She tried to scowl at him, but her heart just wasn't in it. "So you came all this way—"

"To court you," he finished as bluntly as he could muster. It was exhilarating.

Her eyes flicked up to his, ink-colored in the rich lighting. "What took you so long?"

His lips quirked up as he puzzled over that one. "I don't really know. I have no excuse. I thought of you every day, of all the things I wanted to chase after you and say when you walked out of Telma's bar last spring. I just assumed that I didn't interest you. Telma was the one who told me Auru was coming, suggested that I might travel with him. I tried to deny myself the hope her words gave me, but." He shook his head and smiled, finally letting go of her hand. He missed it at once, that small part of her that he could hold. "I wanted to see you too badly."

Ashei eyed him thoughtfully. "What did you think I wanted," she ventured quietly, the caution of nearby rancor threatening on the edge of her voice, "Some gallant knight to look after me?"

"I know you don't need taking care of," he assured her, smiling at the wry way her eyes moved now. The conversation felt unreal, and yet more real than any he'd ever had. His senses absorbed every drop of every moment, tingling with new life. His fingertips still prickled from having touched the bare skin of her wrist. "But when you spoke of men in Hyrule, how they lacked valor, I thought that you could never respect someone like me." She waited for him to elaborate; he thought she was leaning a little closer, or maybe he was. He sighed and explained with some dread, "Someone who isn't very athletic."

She laughed and it mesmerized him. "Valor and athleticism don't always coincide."

She was silent and he felt himself full to bursting with impatience. His emotions were so rampant when she was near him! He was frustrated and smiling hugely all at once. "You're really going to make me work for it," he demanded, "aren't you?"

"What do you mean?" Was her innocence feigned, or was she truly oblivious to the power that her words, and equally so her lack of them, had over him?

His smile faded a little as he formulated the sentence in his mind. The sheer impossibility of it stupefied him. His voice hushed and he leaned closer. "How is it that you didn't laugh at me? How can I tell you that I want you and yet you haven't scoffed at me and stormed off at my impudence? What do I have that you could possibly want?"

"You're passionate," she said irrefutably. He blinked at the suddenness and finality of her response. She said, by no means timidly but less curtly than she normally would, "There's no holding you back from something you want. When you wanted to solve the mysteries your father left you, you did it without thought to anything else; you didn't care if people thought you were crazy or if they wanted something else of you. When you spoke of the things that excited you, though I found them all monotonous, there was fire in your eyes and it was contagious. I admired that you could have that much dedication to something."

"I do covet you," he admitted, his brow creasing. "I know I have no right to, but I can't help myself."

Lera trotted over proudly with a dead rodent in her maw. Ashei ripped it out of her mouth by its tail, unleashing a spurt of blood into the grass, and threw it into the field for her to fetch.

Definitely not a dainty, blonde sophisticate.

She wrapped her arms around herself, and he wished he were those arms. She said softly, staring out at the moon-washed plain again, "Shad."

His heart thrummed again as she let the strange and amazing word slip out from between her lips and his brow knit a little at the unfamiliar quietness in her voice. He'd never heard her say it that way; it worried him. She sounded like she was asking him for something, and he knew that whatever it was she would have it. "Yes?"

She whispered towards the field, "I just wanted to say your name. It sounds different."

He only stared; finally, unabashedly, stared. He started at the black rim of her eyelashes, the dark awnings of her eyes. He followed her cheekbone to her jaw and the curve of it to her lips. He took his time, savoring each part of her in the new light of midnight. By now she was watching him look intently at her, and when he caught her eyes watching him he was glued to them. A ripple of regret washed over him and his brow puckered like it had all winter again.

He said, "I'm a coward. I should've come to you sooner."

"You should've come sooner," she agreed.

He wanted to whisk her away. Her failure to reject him only endeared her to him that much more. Every aspect of her, all those miniscule things that made up her overall perfection, was suddenly amplified to him, now that there was a whisper of a promise that she could be his. She had _wanted_ him to come. The revelation of that was indescribable.

"Passionate," he echoed. That was one way to put it. A way he hadn't, but should've, expected her to see it.

"I wondered what it would be like to be the subject of that kind of devotion," she said, more unguarded than he had ever seen her. It made his breath catch, this beautiful, unfamiliar vulnerability. Of course, vulnerable by her standards was still a heavily fortified by anyone else's. "A devotion I could trust implicitly. I always thought that I could never have true confidence in anyone but myself, but I thought, if you ever wanted me, that I would be able to trust you."

Her expressions were not helping his suddenly overwhelming desire to attempt things that he knew would certainly _not_ inspire to trust. His thoughts roved around the way her palm had felt under his lips, and how he wanted so much to feel her skin somewhere else – anywhere else – with them. He thought it was strange, how such wonderful words from her could move him to do exactly the opposite of what she supposed he would. It occurred to him that, under different circumstances – if they were married, for instance – those ideas wouldn't be villainous. But these weren't those circumstances, and he wouldn't have the strength to live if he ever hurt her, so he resolved to banish those ideas for as long as he should.

He said absently, "I haven't even asked your father if he would approve of us."

"If he disapproved you would already know."

That was true. He sighed and let himself fall back into the grass. He glanced at her; she looked dazzling, her face framed by the moon and stars.

She seemed to hesitate a moment and it completely imprisoned his attention. It wasn't sheepishness – he didn't think Ashei had the ability to be sheepish – but it wasn't her usual forthright manner either. She smirked and asked, "How long?"

He was too engrossed in her mannerisms for his brain to work properly. "How long what?"

She leaned a little closer. "How long have you thought about me the way you do now?"

He closed his eyes and laughed, turning his face away to hide his embarrassment. He didn't know if he would ever get the hang of this, of trying to have a conversation with her while retaining a shred of dignity. He inhaled the sweet smelling grass his face was turned towards. He admitted, "You had me at, 'It's Ashei.'"

He turned back to her to watch her face. He was learning to face his fears, gradually; if facing them meant he could stare into her eyes then the tradeoff was worth it. "But that's not when I loved you."

Stupid! Words, tumbling everywhere—!

"And when was that?"

He said, as the truth of the words dawned on him, "I don't remember. It just happened."

Her smile was glorious to look upon. He had never seen her look so… happy. And that was the epitome of what he wanted for her, so it pleased him to a degree he had never felt. She let herself fall back onto the grass next to him and said, still smiling, "Your mother will hate me."

Shad barked a laugh at that, reassured her, "She'll have no idea what to think of you."

He never wanted to see that smile fade. "You'll take me to meet her?"

"Of course I will." If bursting from happiness wasn't an anatomical impossibility, he might have.

"I have nothing to wear," she mused.

He rolled his eyes. "You could wear an empty grain sack and still impress her with your beauty."

He could've sworn her saw a touch of color in her cheeks, but surely that couldn't have been so. It must've been the cold air.

"I haven't worn a dress since I was a little girl."

"You don't have to wear a dress."

"Right. I could wear a grain sack."

"Stop it," he insisted.

She blinked. "Stop what?"

"Bewitching me." He shook his head. "It's disorienting."

"No promises."

He willed time to slow down. He wanted to remember every moment of this evening, every expression on her face, every gesture of her frame, every word that came out of her mouth, and how all of it made him feel. Seconds seemed to leap in and out of his life unbidden as he frantically tried and failed to harness them. He said, his mouth twitching down, "I don't want this to end."

Her eyes stirred as though they were the liquid in a cauldron and his words were the mixer and his spoon. "Does it have to?"

"Auru is leaving in two days," Shad reasoned, new pain taking root as the words slipped out of his mouth. "I can't impose on your father any longer than that. I'm useless here."

She waited for him to add something else, but he didn't. What he _wanted_ to add was, "so I want to ask you to come with me." But he could only imagine her reaction to his impropriety. Asking a woman to leave her home and travel to be near a man who hadn't even asked her to marry him was out of the question. It would soil her reputation, to be known as the girl carrying on a courtship with no chaperone in the immediate vicinity. And if he asked her to marry him – he dared not think of her reaction to that. Surely her desire for him was no where near as deep as his was for her, given how little she knew him, and she would think he was a fool for proposing so quickly. He felt sure enough for his part of where he wanted their relationship to go, but there was a certain manner in which these affairs were handled. They would have to correspond for a while; he would have to assure her of his loyalty and devotion, even across great distance and spans of time. But what he really wanted, more than anything, was to beg her to end his misery and come back to Castle Town as his wife.

He didn't think he could fathom what an idiot that would make him in her eyes.

"Then we'll have to make the most of them," she finally decided.

He could see them now, accelerating their relationship under the threat of the time constraints and she, walking hand in hand with him, suddenly realizing she had made a mistake. Would they make poor decisions, trying to make the most of the next two days? He knew the sorts of irreversible errors people could make when they were in love. Would he try to steal a kiss when he left, and she go along with it, only for her to regret it the next morning? No, he wouldn't _let_ her make a decision she'd regret. He wouldn't give her opportunity.

He said firmly, "I want to do this right."

Her brow furrowed a moment and she smirked wryly. "And what exactly is 'right'?"

"I mean I don't want you to regret any of the time we spend together." He suddenly didn't know what to do with his hands. He fumbled with them for a minute before folding them over his stomach and he sighed unintentionally at himself. "I just don't want you to rush into anything you'll wish you hadn't when I'm gone."

"I rarely regret my decisions," she informed him. It sounded more like she was defending herself than reassuring him.

He turned his face to her and let her presence lull his misery away. "So what will we do?"

She said simply, "Be together."

He liked that idea more than he could express, and hearing her voice it made it that much more enthralling. She let her eyes drift up to his and they spent the next little while familiarizing themselves with this new, silent form of communication. It was as though, slowly, she _was_ learning to see inside his soul.

Finally, after an immeasurable amount of time, he said quietly, "We should go back."

She led him to the village and didn't stop to say goodnight before she retired to her room.


	4. Introduced Anew

_A/N: Apologies for the delay. This chapter gave me quite a bit of trouble, mostly, I think, because Shad refuses to be forthcoming with me about his feelings and is deliberately trying to sabotage this story. How dare he. And what's more, I'm still not satisfied with the result. But I'm far too impatient to work on it any longer because I'm too excited about the next chapter to dedicate myself to the chore of editing. I can always repost a more elegant edition, I suppose, should I ever write one._

_In the month between this installment and the posting of the last, I also started writing a oneshot that will fit in nicely with this, some future chapter scenes, a couple thousands words for Ashei's side of the story, and a whopping 1,208 words for the next chapter of Perseverance, which, it seems, would rather die a painful, gory death than lend itself to any kind of inspiration. Curse you, devoted reader, for convincing me to pick that mess up again! You know who you are!_

_Anyway. It is my hope that the many evident flaws in this chapter are not as readily apparent to everyone else as they are to me, and that it doesn't disappoint anyone too badly. I'd like to thank the fabulous musician(s) behind the band OTT and the song "The Queen of All Everything" for being so whimsical and inspirational, without which song this chapter might never have been finished._

_Please review, if you have the time. =)_

Introduced Anew

Shad didn't sleep at all. His mind raced and his body was full of adrenaline. It felt appropriate to describe his ailment as being _too happy to sleep_. He tossed for hours, trying to get comfortable so that he could be well-rested to enjoy the next day. But his thoughts ran and danced and explored and relived until the calmness necessary for sleep was unachievable. He was awake when Auru stirred just before dawn. He heard him and Kroe shuffle out of the house with their gear and shortly thereafter the morning sun assaulted his eyes.

He rose despite the ungodly hour and stoked the fire, hanging a kettle for tea. Lera joined him as he collapsed on the couch and waited for the water to boil. Though utterly sleep deprived, he felt content, knowing he was in Ashei's house, waiting for her to wake. He imagined her, slumbering peacefully, and drifted off for a moment. The kettle's whistle roused him again, but Ashei was already pulling it off the fire before he could orient himself.

"I'm so sorry," he muttered, rubbing one eye. "I must've drifted off. I didn't mean to wake you."

"I was already awake," she smiled weakly. "I didn't sleep much last night."

Ashei pulled cups and a satchel of tea out of the cupboard. She sat in front of the fireplace while she brewed; he thought she was probably fully aware of how intently he watched her, though she gave no sign. His heart tugged at him painfully again. The prospect of leaving made it exceedingly difficult to concentrate on the pleasure of the moment, and it was maddening. As if she was sharing his train of thought, he heard Ashei sigh quietly while she poured more hot water. The constant swaying between total bliss and abject misery was exhausting.

She sat beside him and handed him his cup; she only held her own, keeping her fingers warm instead of drinking. He longed to touch those fingers, if only to trace them, but instead held the porcelain tighter. She was quiet, and it made his heart hammer. Her silence could only mean that she was thinking, and his exclusion from those private thoughts was trying. He watched her fingers, the way they stiffly grasped the teacup, as though they may have been made of porcelain themselves.

"This china was my mother's," she finally said. "She loved tea."

The tea they drank wasn't the black tea he was used to, but some kind of mountain-grown flowering tea. It tasted fragrant and rare; it reminded him of her. He took another sip and lingered over the flavor for a while. He asked, "What will you show me today?"

"I'll take you to Graycrest, if you'll take a ride with me," she offered.

Ashei made the destination sound like the appealing part, but taking a ride with her – he couldn't imagine a mere location with more draw than that prospect. He let his head fall back onto the couch tiredly, smirking as he sipped his tea. "Of course I will."

After tea they dressed, packed some things for what Ashei mentioned would be an all-day journey, and went to the barn, where life was just starting. Lera ran through the aisles, terrorizing the unsuspecting horses. A man brought in a gelding, while they tacked, from lunging. He stroked the neck of Ashei's mare while she adjusted the saddle, meeting her eyes just over the horse's withers.

He asked, "Where are you headed so early?"

Shad didn't like his tone, or the way his eyes harnessed hers so possessively.

"Up to Graycrest," Ashei answered dismissively.

"Graycrest, huh?" He slid under the horse's neck to join Ashei in adjusting the saddle. Shad didn't like his proximity. "What's happening in Graycrest?"

She gestured with her head. "I'm taking Shad up for the day."

His eyes moved in Shad's direction and his brow fell when he spotted him. He muttered, "Oh."

Shad didn't like his overall manner, really.

"Shad," Ashei said, with a much nicer tone than she had used with their company, "this is Conall."

In fact, Shad didn't much like Conall at all. For the sake of appearances, he said anyway, "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Well, take care," Conall said, ignoring Shad's greeting, "don't let Shad get eaten."

Ashei slipped the reins over her mare's head, passing Shad a smile as she led the way out of the stables that he wasn't sure how to read, but that he liked. She swung herself onto her mount and Shad did the same. Lera perched on the mare's hindquarters as though she did it every day, and neither animal ever seemed distressed by the arrangement. They rode single file through the narrow, divergent paths that wrapped around to the mountain's west face, and then rode abreast through the prairie they led to. Stone rose, flanking the grasslands, emotionlessly as they turned east. Soon they were in an ascending canyon filled with lush, sheltered vegetation. The slope grew steeper. A rivulet rushed down the rock, and the horses followed its flow backward like a guide. She touched his hand once, as they rode, to point out a bird that lived only on the mountain, and sent shivers all through him.

They came out of the ravine above it, surrounded by gray rock. On one side towered even more stone out of which the water ran, and in every other direction spanned a panoramic view of everything the mountain had to offer. She showed him where the village would have been visible but for the forests obstructing their view. Shad had never seen the sky look so enormous. The mountain stretched down and away from Graycrest, overlooking the misty hills of Hyrule's lowlands and, vaguely, the many-faceted, tiny azure jewel that he recognized as Lake Hylia, sparkling in the distance. Lera took off without attracting any attention. Ashei pulled a pack off her mare's saddle and spread its contents on the stone; they ate an early lunch together while they examined the landscape.

They sat in close proximity while they ate so that only the slightest miscalculation might have them brush each other, but neither made such an error. Over a bit of dried meat, he confided, "I'm afraid of your father's reaction when I finally confront him about us."

"I'll protect you, should he resort to violence," she assured him with a smile. She finished coring and peeling the apple in her hand and offered him half. "He taught me too well for his own good."

"I wouldn't make you fight a man with a bad leg," he said, accepting the fruit, and added self-deprecatingly, "I could outrun him if it came to that."

"I want to try your spectacles," she announced out of the blue.

He barked a laugh and slid them off his face. She played with them for a while, straining to focus on various objects unsuccessfully. While she was preoccupied he retrieved a large hardbound copy of one of his favorite titles out of his pack. Ashei handed his glasses back to him when she spotted it, ready to give it her full attention.

"It's fiction," he hedged, and she smiled.

"Read me some," she requested.

He laughed again, very quietly. Why was it so difficult to say no to her? "Um, alright. But I'm not sure I'm much of a reader."

"If I recall," she said while she made herself comfortable, scooting closer so she could read alongside him, "You're formidable at book reading."

"I mean out loud," he smirked, exasperated, balancing the book on his lap uncomfortably. Public speaking was one thing, but a one-woman audience – particularly when the impressions made upon said woman were so important to him – made him feel self-conscious to an extreme degree. But he was powerless to deny her. He tried one last time, "You're sure about this?"

She nodded, her face close to his. Such a small distance… he had only to let his frame drift closer ever so slightly, so that his lips might brush hers…

He forced himself to concentrate on the first page. He read. At first he felt completely and utterly stupid, but after the first few paragraphs he let himself read the words rather than listen to himself read them. It was easy, being with her and sharing with her like this. He lost track of the pages he turned and she, as she was drawn by the story, leaned her shoulder against his and let his voice paint the fiction behind her eyes.

He finished a few chapters and said, allowing himself the immense pleasure of leaning his head towards her so he could feel her hair on his cheek, "Have you heard enough?"

"For now," she permitted.

He closed the book and ran a hand over the front cover. He noticed that she didn't move away from his shoulder; he had no intentions of objecting.

"Alright," he decided, "it's time to play a game."

"I like games," she agreed.

He smirked. "I know."

He _loved_ that, the feeling that he knew something about her, something that was not readily apparent. He wanted to know everything there was to know; and yet, he knew that there would be no end to the surprises he would unveil in her. She was too complex for there to be any end to the mystery of her.

"What are the rules?"

"Tell me something I don't know about you," he explained, "And then I'll do the same. And when I know everything there is to know about you, you lose."

She loosely veiled rolling her eyes. "Fine. You go first."

The game was harder than he had originally intended. It was difficult to decide what to reveal; he realized it was because there was so much to choose from, and it was a little disheartening. For having been acquainted as long as they had, they knew so little about each other. His pause was getting long so he decided on the first thing that came to mind. "I think sunflowers are ugly."

Ashei laughed and he praised himself for eliciting such a rewarding response. She shared, "I like Hylian men for their pointy ears."

He laughed next, and leaned into her shoulder a little, too, as he relaxed. "I don't like Conall."

She threw her gaze to him and her eyes were excited. "Are you jealous?"

He was flustered for a second but answered truthfully, "Yes!"

For reasons that escaped him, she appeared terribly pleased with that answer. She quickly went on, "I'm allergic to peaches."

"My first and only pet was a cat, and I loathed it."

"My favorite color is purple."

"Alright, how about this," he said, pivoting so that he faced her. He did this mostly so that he could look at her, but also because he was wary of growing accustomed to touching her; he would only want that more once that started, and keeping his distance was nearly unbearable as it was. He smirked a little in spite of himself, "I love the sound of your laugh."

She answered, "I love the sound of yours."

He leaned his mouth again his hand while he thought. "I wasn't expecting that."

"Do you remember last spring, before I left, we went to the Sacred Grove in Faron with Auru?"

One of his more treasured memories; they had spoken at length that day about their discoveries. "Yes. I think Auru suspected me then."

"You weaved a circlet with some weeds."

"Lady's-thumb. I was bored."

"You gave it to me and I pressed it in a book. It's still in my bookshelf." She met his eyes and found them rapt. He liked that she had kept the token, despite how insignificant it was. Immensely. She reminded him, "Your turn."

He couldn't think. His mind was a mire of infatuation. He muttered, "I hope it rains tomorrow."

Her eyes sparkled a little. "It might."

Shad tried to concoct another. "I'm fluent in nine languages. Fourteen, if you include dialect variations."

"Can you read Zoran script?"

"Sea and River dialects," he affirmed.

"I'm partial to the works of Mikau-Lu," she hinted quietly.

He was familiar with him: a late-period romantic poet, the son of a famous singer, who wrote a little over a hundred years ago. He would never have guessed she liked poetry; then again, it was his understanding that all women liked to be romanced. He would have to reacquaint himself with those passages. "I'll see what I can find of his in my library when I get back." He mentally swatted away the sting that accompanied the last four words.

Ashei continued, "I don't know how to dance."

"I'll teach you," he answered simply. It was an unthinking reaction.

She smirked. "Really?"

"If you want to learn." He didn't normally associate dancing with anything special – he was obligated to ask young ladies to the dance floor if they were unaccompanied and was used to doing so regularly as a matter of politeness – but the thought of dancing with _her_, of leading her through the turns of the song, of holding her in the proper frame with his hand resting on her back, seemed like a fantasy. He smiled.

And the game continued, often devolving into discussions of random topics. It dumbfounded him again and again how he had survived a whole year without her enriching presence. She was smart, beautiful, adventurous, honest – and, to top it all off, she had been waiting for him to approach her. How had he been so blind? Despite their apparent differences, they were rarely without something to talk about during their outing and Shad felt his need for and connection with her swiftly deepening. Whereas a few days before she was an untouchable conquest, now she was tangible, she was real. And she was more spectacular than before. He was slowly uncovering her flaws, her ambitions; all the little pieces that made her who she was. Certainly having known her before had something to do with the velocity of his feelings, but having this private time to talk – just the two of them, with nothing to distract his interest – it was like being introduced anew.

She insisted that they race back from Graycrest, when the sun began teetering off its hottest angle, and her mare wholly schooled his clumsy packhorse, but he had come to terms with losing those sorts of competitions with her shortly after he had met her and wasn't bothered. And as for her, she seemed appreciative that he humored her need for those sorts of immature forms of entertainment and that was all that really mattered to him. Lera, who had appeared as if summoned just as they were leaving, had dug her claws into Ashei's pack and managed to stay on-board for the duration of the contest.

All warmth was evaporating from the ground by the time they made it back to the village, where several of the families, Ashei's father and guest included, had gathered around a large fire to roast a communion meal. Shad and Ashei sat together on one of the logs some of the children had dragged out of the woods for chairs and Shad was introduced to those sitting in the immediate vicinity. He pointedly ignored Conall, who was staring enviously at him through the flames. Lera moved about, visiting from log to log, looking for handouts.

The liquid blue on the rim of the horizon faded and they ate a dinner of different meats under a dazzling blanket of stars, all of them splashed in orange light and shadows. Shad was pulled this way and that into different conversations as the night went on; sometimes without Ashei, and when that happened he found it hard to concentrate on the people speaking to him. He would steal glances at Ashei, who looked magnificent spattered in firelight, between his attempts at listening to whoever happened to be speaking in their group, and tried to memorize every faint line and etch of her face. He thought he had never enjoyed such peace. As the hour grew late, some of the older ones and those with children left, creating a momentary lull in the interactions. During one such interruption, Ashei turned to him and stared. He felt like he was floating in her gaze, in the pleasant darkness of it.

She suggested quietly, "Hold my hand."

He returned her stare for a moment as he pondered her request. He reminded himself that it was against his better judgment to do so, but just then he couldn't think of a good reason not to. So he put his palm against hers and let his fingers fall between hers; he watched their hands tangle like he was discovering something for the first time. She didn't say much else to him that night, and she didn't let go of his hand until they wandered, in the wee hours of the morning, back into the house, and she left him in the main room without saying goodnight and without looking back.

Shad failed to get much sleep, again. His mind was ecstatic and active, replaying the events of the day and recalling the features of her face and frame that he had spent most of the day trying to memorize. He remembered each time she laughed, and the patterns the loose tendrils of her hair would make across her face when the wind blew over Graycrest. He spent a lot of the night dwelling on how her hand had felt holding his. The reaction of his skin to touching hers wasn't normal. Even if his mind hadn't known it was her hand he held, his body would've. The contact was unlike anything he had known; it was not cold, and it was not warm; it was not smooth, and it was not rough; it was very alien, and very wonderful, and he could think of little else besides feeling it again in the morning.

That, and confronting Kroe.

He didn't really expect Kroe to voice any sort of disapproval, once he understood that it was what Ashei wanted, but as it was he didn't feel like he deserved her and figured that Kroe felt the same way. He could hardly blame him; Ashei was his only daughter, and there was probably no man in the world that Kroe would ever feel truly _deserved _her love. Shad could only rely on Ashei's influence over Kroe's good opinion and do his best to live up to it.

He tossed and waited for a morning struggling to claw its way up to the horizon.


	5. A Storm

_A/N: I have a number of excuses for the delay surrounding this chapter, but they don't pardon me. :)_

_... And don't kill me for the way this chapter ends, there is more to come! Bwehehehehee!_

_Please be sure to review!_

A Storm

The next day, it rained. Shad had never been so happy to been kept indoors by a torrential downpour. The clouds had swept in out of nowhere near dawn and unleashed a storm the likes of which, Shad guessed, only ever battered the mountaintops. The windows of the house were so thick with water he couldn't see outside.

When Shad rose Ashei was already in front of the fireplace, waiting for the kettle.

She smiled up at him from where she waited on the hearthstones, and his breath left him a little at the sight of her. "Tea?"

He nodded and knelt beside her. Lera was curled up with her back to the fire, contented to spend the day asleep for once. She started when a growl of thunder sounded but promptly returned to snoozing when she was sure there was no danger. As for Shad, two nights without decent rest were scrambling his thoughts. They drifted incoherently, snagging on tiny details like the curve of Ashei's fingers as she poured the hot water, or the way the fire made her silhouette glow, or the way her loosed hair would cascade when she moved.

When she had steeped the tea to her liking, she handed him the cup and said, finally harnessing his eyes, "I don't think the rain will hold."

And that would be bad, because unless the ground stayed thoroughly saturated until nightfall Auru would probably deem the next morning good for travel. The water was too hot to sip. He asked, "What makes you think so?"

"Weather that comes in so suddenly usually leaves the same way," she explained, her eyes wafting away from his imperceptibly.

He thought, despite her expression's usual impassiveness, that she looked hurt, and it bothered him to no end. "Let's not think about that."

She made a derisive sound but then conceded, "All right. Get your book for me, yeah? I want to know what happens."

He handed her his teacup and retrieved the book out of his room stealthily, careful not to disturb Auru. When he came back to the main room she was waiting on the couch. When he sat she spread a blanket over their legs and picked up her teacup from the floor, and then sat back expectantly. He opened to where they had left off and began to read without being prodded. She seemed pleased with the arrangement and listened carefully; it escaped him what about being read to she liked so much.

Half way through their second chapter he frowned. "My tea has gotten cold."

Before she could respond the door to Kroe's room snapped shut and his heavy stride sounded in the hall. He headed straight for the cupboard and retrieved some eggs, butter, and a pan.

"Morning kiddos," he said distractedly, checking the fuel in the woodstove. "Quite a storm."

Shad stared after him as he worked up his nerve. He nudged Ashei gently and she translated his intentions quickly.

Throwing her side of the blanket on him, she got herself off the couch and said, taking the pan away from Kroe, "I got it, Dad."

He seemed pleasantly surprised and muttered, relinquishing control of his breakfast, "Thanks."

Kroe limped over to the couch and took the seat next to Shad.

He took one last, deep breath before venturing, "Kroe, I was wondering if I might speak to you, privately."

Kroe's jaw tightened just a bit as he regarded him. "You mean about your intentions towards my daughter?"

His tone took the wind out of Shad's sails. While they spoke quietly and the eggs she had thrown into the pan were making quite a bit of noise, he knew Ashei was probably still eavesdropping. It could hardly be helped, though; it wasn't as though he could just send her to her—

"Ashei, give us some time alone."

She hesitated over the sizzling eggs as she glanced sidelong at her father. "What about your breakfast?"

"It can wait. Go to your room and close the door, please."

She slid the pan onto the counter without looking at it, still staring at the back of Kroe's head disbelievingly. "You're _sending me to my room_?"

She considered that for the briefest of moments before resigning herself to the idea, snatching the book out of Shad's hands on her way out to relieve her boredom, and shutting herself in her bedroom. Shad's heart hammered, but he felt no fear of Kroe. He wanted Ashei to be his, and he'd throw himself to the Kargaroks if he let a little thing like her father's intimidation stop him from getting her. He did fear his denying him, though, however minute the chance of that happening was. Kroe seemed contemplative and he waited.

Finally, he said, "My daughter isn't like your city girls, Shad."

"Yes, I know," he answered confusedly; it was incredibly apparent how different from them she was.

"And you think you're prepared to take responsibility for a woman whose needs are so alien to you?" Shad thought that unthinkingly blurting out "yes" wasn't going to aid his case, so he waited. Kroe went on, "I know you're a good man, Shad. I respect you. But if you get yourself into a situation for which you are ill-prepared and you find yourself wishing you hadn't, Ashei will know that and it will ruin her."

He had never considered that possibility, mostly because it sounded impossible to him. But the thought that he _could_ potentially ruin her with his inability was a sobering thought. For a moment he couldn't bring himself to meet Kroe's eyes, because Shad saw what he saw: Ashei, crushed in spirit, overlooking the city from their windows like a once beautiful, exotic bird looking out of a cage, trapped in a loveless marriage with a broken heart, and he, disoriented and lacking, neglecting her as she evaporated.

More because he couldn't bear the image any longer than in response to anything Kroe had said, he whispered, "No."

"She'll fight me if I try to refuse you," Kroe muttered. "And I wouldn't try to keep her from you if this is something you're both sure you want to undertake. But as a father, rendered powerless by his daughter's obstinacy and anxious for her happiness, I'm begging you to consider the practicality of this before you begin making her promises that you might not keep."

Shad felt boneless and cruel. How had he failed to consider this situation from Kroe's perspective? He would've taken her and caged her, like some exotic prize, the moment he was given opportunity. Her father's words were reverberating all through him and haunting him. He hadn't thought ahead, he hadn't been calculating enough; he would've blindly stepped out into the unknown and taken her along without any thoughts to there being consequences of that action.

He finally said, feeling as though he'd already committed an atrocity against her, "I never meant her any kind of harm. I love her. I could learn; I would give her anything." But he knew what Kroe left unspoken: how could he give what he simply didn't have?

A gentle smile took shape over Kroe's mouth, but his eyes remained cautious. He only said, "Love isn't always enough."

Shad clenched his fist at the image of her, barren and broken, that danced in his mind's eye. He had already done her wrong, by not thinking things through before coming up the mountain to pursue her. But he hoped that, if he gave her everything he had, and slaved until his soul was ravaged for her, he might be able to amend his error. Leaving her or ruining her would break him. While it was true that leaving her might have been the _easiest_ way to ensure her immediate safety, it was not something he could bring himself to do, so he had no choice but to repair the damage and keep her safe _with him_, no matter what the cost to himself.

He decided firmly, "I won't disappoint her." It was as much a vow to himself as it was to her father.

Kroe nodded. "If you're certain."

Shad, still trembling inwardly in the wake of what the conversation had given him to think about, only managed to nod.

"Then I'm going to have a talk with her." In an instant, the looming weightiness of Kroe's expression dissipated and he asked quite neutrally, "Finish frying my eggs, will you?"

It was a relief to have a job to do. He went to the stove at once and let the monotony of his task slow his mind, pointedly attempting not to imagine their conversation as Kroe disappeared down the hall. He couldn't hear a word from behind her bedroom door. As the seconds ticked by the silence became more and more difficult to ignore until it took every ounce of conviction to stay focused enough on Kroe's breakfast to make sure it didn't burn. They were cooked before Kroe came back, and he was forced to take them off the heat and return to the couch with nothing to busy his mind except what Ashei might be saying.

Shad started when the door opened. Ashei came out first, the book still in her hands. He looked up at her tensely when she stood in front of the couch, and they both dithered in silence. Finally she cracked a crooked smile and said, handing him the hardback, "Well, that was kind of awkward."

Her easy manner with what had been a traumatizing albeit brief ordeal made him smile. He took the book from her and watched her as she went to put her father's breakfast on a plate and set it on the table for him. She was magnificent. It floored him that she had even spared him a second glance. And he was that much closer to having her forever.

"Dad, stop hiding in the bedroom. Your eggs are getting cold."

"I'm not _hiding_," he growled as he hobbled into the hall. "It's this blasted leg."

On her way back to her seat next to Shad, she stopped to take his stubbly face in her hands and kiss his cheek. "I love you, Dad."

"Go, get!" He insisted, and she rounded the couch and plopped onto the cushion just as Auru emerged from oversleeping.

"Look at that rain!" He announced, helping himself to the eggs in the cupboard and taking the used pan off the counter. "What a storm!"

While he and Kroe bantered, Ashei and Shad only smiled privately to each other. He wanted to stare at her evermore, and she seemed content to do the same. He would keep her happy; he would keep her safe, no matter what. He would find a way.

She asked quietly, "Are you hungry?"

"No," he laughed. His stomach was still agitated from his nerves and the thought of food was completely unappealing. "No. I couldn't eat a bite."

She folded her legs under herself and watched him carefully.

He asked, not sure how to respond to her scrutiny, "What?"

She smiled and replied, slowly taking his teacup and sipping his cold tea, "Nothing."

The rain stopped an hour later and the sun struck everywhere, bejeweling the mountain in sparkling dew. Lera scratched at door when she sensed it was no longer overcast, and so Ashei and Shad took her for a walk. They were both acutely aware of what the lack of bad weather implied, but neither said anything about it. He mustered the courage, as they sauntered by a gushing stream, to snarl his fingertips in hers, and their hands hung linked together idly between them uninterrupted from then on. The back of his hand fit perfectly against her palm, sending immeasurable warmth up his arm that settled in his middle, gently swirling and warming all of him.

They followed Lera up the watercourse, climbing the moss-ridden stones until the canopy of the forest, turning the world soft shades of blue with its overhang, gave them a decent place to rest. Ashei whistled for Lera and didn't chase her when she disobeyed. Everything was still wet from the downpour, so Shad draped his jacket over the rocks to give them a place to sit and put his spectacles in his vest pocket so they would stop getting dripped on. She played with his fingers, tracing every part of his hand. The sensations sent tremors racking all through him.

Spring, not to be outdone by the rain, had reinvigorated itself after the storm. The moment the sun reappeared, birdsong erupted in discordant full force and what few buds there were seemed to will themselves to blossom. Despite the sounds and activity all around them, their own silence seemed deafening in comparison. He stared into the overflowing stream, hypnotized by the bubbling, tumultuous waters.

Finally, she asked, "Will you write?"

His eyes darted to her profile at once, his brow pinching. Her own eyes were still hidden, following the brook as his had. Her voice was level but emotionless, and he deciphered at once what kind of pain would move her to use a voice so void of feeling.

He pulled her hand closer to himself to get her attention and promised earnestly, when her eyes cautiously darted up to his, "Every day."

He saw the artificial detachedness in her gaze, too, and the threads of light and color that would flicker where her emotions threatened to break through. Seeing her so bound up and guarded tore at him, and for an instant he saw the vision of her, listless and unloved, in his simulated memory. Why wouldn't she let herself cry like any other woman? Why did she keep the hurt pent up and insist on enduring it alone? He wished, somehow, that he could help her bear it. He clenched his fist at the large part of him that longed to hold her, the part that was quickly rallying more of him to its side. Before he could think better of it, he swept one finger across the plane of her cheekbone to keep her eyes from slipping away.

Overcome by the conflict in her eyes, he leaned in to banish it forever. Each nerve in him instinctively braced for the overload he knew being this close to her would cause, but even more potently his body relaxed as the relief of her nearness eased every anxiety coursing through him. His thoughts and wants flawlessly melded to become a singular entity. His progress was slow, both to savor the moment and to gauge her reaction. His eyes felt heavy as he grew closer to his goal, trying to blot out any sense that might interfere with his complete focus on his objective. And then he felt her breath on his lip.

It was like a slap in the face. He hesitated as he revaluated his actions, suddenly overwhelmed by the flood of reasons he shouldn't be doing what he was as they tumbled over him. The moment felt like an eon. Undeniable clarity broke through the fog and he swallowed once, numbly, as the disappointment registered. His eyes flicked to hers – unreadable, but soft – and back to her mouth, a few times, and then he affectionately ran his thumb from beneath her lip to the tip of her chin. Exhausted by his restraint, he closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers; he was not strong enough to fight that. He could still taste her breath, like sweet nectar, on his mouth.

He only assured her again, "Every day."

Her fingertips softly traced his eyelids and he flinched under her touch as she shocked his unsuspecting nerve endings. He felt her forehead back away from his, but he kept his eyes closed under her touch as she watched him.

Her voice barely a whisper, she said, "I can't believe I didn't see this coming."

He asked in a murmur against her palm, "Didn't see what coming?"

Her hand dropped and he found her eyes at once. They were narrow, incredulous at her own shortsightedness. She managed, bitterly, "You."

Shad studied her face for a while, at a loss for words. He saw the shell of her, evaporating in the unfamiliarity of the city, again, and grimaced. He doubted Kroe knew just how effective his plea had been; he couldn't rid himself of the vision of her and it was like a blow every time it resurfaced. He murmured, as though she was watching the possibility with him and fearing that future, "Don't be afraid."

Just as he realized the words probably didn't make sense to her, her eyes widened as though he had discovered some great secret in her. And it occurred to him, as though someone had pulled the world out from under his feet, that she _was_ afraid. He'd never thought of her as ever _fearing_ anything. And then, like someone was shattering his spine with the greatest of war hammers, the crippling urge to hold her came bearing down on him again. He forced his frame to go rigid. Carefully, calculatingly, he stroked one side of her face and let his hand rest briefly over her ear.

He assured her firmly, "You don't have to be afraid."

_Consider the practicality of this before you begin making her promises that you might not keep._

Kroe's words rebuked him with a force that took effort to conceal in his expression. He shivered gently in the cold; was he lying to her even now?

Her voice sounded as though the order had been a question once, "Don't forget about me."

Shad laughed once without humor, grief weaving itself into his expression. He whispered, shaking his head slowly at the incredulity of the notion, "Ashei. I couldn't. If the Light Spirits themselves commanded it, I couldn't."

Ashei's eyes were less devoid; they gleamed with only the darkest, warmest colors. Before she could respond, Lera appeared out of nowhere, made a giant splash in the brook, and then bounded straight into her arms, still cascading icy water. She hissed quietly at the cold but wrapped her arms around the soaked animal, once she registered that trying to stay dry was a lost cause, and murmured into her ear.

"Let's get you home," Shad suggested, immediately envisioning her bedridden with a cold.

She complied and, after changing into drier, warmer clothes, sat in front of the fireplace at Shad's insistence. He wasn't going to allow her to be anything but perfectly healthy as long as he had a say in it.

While he had reassured her to the best of his abilities, she still seemed closed off to him, impervious. Her silence seemed deliberate and he was wary of breaking it. Kroe and Auru were gone, and so the only sound in the house was the fire as it devoured the logs and kindling. What little remained of the daylight dwindled until the corners of the room and everything else outside of the firelight were black. He took to committing her to memory again, every minute detail and breath-taking etch of her form, to sustain him for however long they were apart. She stared into the flames, off in some other world he didn't want to disturb. As if she had stumbled suddenly into some place very cold, she shuddered once, and he got up to get her a blanket.

Ashei pacified him, as he carefully spread the quilt over her back, "I really am warm enough, yeah?"

He pursed his lips at her casual front and freed her hair from the weight of the blanket, letting himself stroke the warm skin at her nape. He had to make a fist to get the electricity running through his hand to stop.

"I'm nothing if not thorough," he muttered as he sat next to her, setting his back to the fire so he could continue to watch her face. He weaved his fingers into hers hungrily again; the gesture made him feel like a soldier reaching desperately for his whisky to numb the throb of an open wound. Their relationship felt so much more solid, no longer just the figment of his imagination it had been only a few days ago. He felt responsible for her. And achingly dependent on her. He whispered, running his thumb back and forth against her hand gently to stir her from wherever place she was, "What have you been thinking? It's pained me not to ask."

"Then you should've asked," she said softly, her disapproval leaking into her angelic voice. He was ravenous for the answer but waited patiently while she gathered her thoughts. Her eyes were distressed and it felt like a branding iron in his chest. "I wish…" she put on a brave half-smile when she felt his concerned gaze, but he saw through it. "I wish you didn't have to go."

That young, frail glimmer of desire he had nursed back in Telma's bar had shapeshifted into a blaze. It was unquenchable, and little by little it was burning him alive. What had seemed like a foolish idea only days ago now felt like a necessity, all the more so as his departure threatened to crush him with its weight. _He couldn't live without this._ His breath became more labored as he concentrated on his train of thought and where it was taking him. But his heart was decided, and it was too late to reason with it.

"Then come with me."

"Come with you?" She echoed, her eyes wide. He thought he'd never seen her look so startled.

"Yes," he stumbled, his throat perilously dry. He tried to swallow but it felt like he was trying to swallow sand. His gaze slipped down, his heart pounding so that he could nearly feel the slosh of his blood coursing out of his chest, and he heard his own breath shaking. He looked back up and she was still staring; his eyebrows pinched together and his eyes searched her face like he was searching for an answer to an ageless riddle. He asked, his body shuddering as the words left him, "Marry me?"

Her lips parted, shocked. He thought he heard the softest of gasps from her. The stillness ate the air until all he heard was his own breathing, unsteady and loud to his own ears. And then, unexpectedly, her expression turned to anger.

"What is the matter with you, Shad?" she hissed, balling her hands into fists. She looked as though she might hit him. He winced, feeling like she had. "You've been here all this time and only now, when I have no time to speak to my father and no time to think, you decide to ask me?"

"I know," he said pathetically, feeling the brunt of her anger like a weight. The words tumbled out of him in a torrent. "It was selfish of me. I'm sorry. But it didn't make sense to ask before; if I'd asked you when I first got here, you never would have accepted me."

"Yes I would have," she bit back, fury and regret in her eyes. That regret ripped him asunder.

She clenched her jaw briefly, as if she was fighting the urge to shout at him, and then she turned and disappeared down the hall into her room, the door of which latched with a strident slam.

Shad stood a moment, dazed. He thought of her. He thought of how much he had learned in the brief time he spent with her, of how he wished his own incompetence didn't get in the way of their happiness. _Her_ happiness. For a moment he was filled with fervor and went to her door to right his wrongs. But his spirit gave out as he approached and he only stood in front of it. The wall that separated them now seemed far less impenetrable then the incorporeal one he had inadvertently raised. He sighed at himself. Resignedly, he put his hand against the door, as if he might feel her through it. He closed his eyes, breathed. His will crumbled as he mulled over some of the obstacles that separated them: his stupidity, his clumsiness and his inability. He withdrew his hand, and then himself, and went to bed.

The silence, as he tried to think, was deafening. He could formulate no words to correct his errors, find no scenario in which they were reconciled before his departure. The torture of it pained him awake until there was no solace for sleep. The night felt hollow. He spent himself searching for a solution and found none. It escaped his notice when Auru returned and slept. He absently watched the appearance of the room shift from nothingness into a web of shadows, and then into shapes that took on dimension and colors with the gradually growing light.

Exhausted and listless, he waited for Ashei to emerge during breakfast, but her door remained impassible.

He stared down the hall while the older men said their lengthy goodbyes. He tried to sort out exactly what it was that kept him from going to her and finding a solution with her right then and there. Surely she knew it wasn't his intention to disappoint her. There must've been something he could say that would lessen the blow of his mistake. But the door looked untouchable, bound closed by magic, as though it would absorb the sound of his pleading and keep her from ever hearing it. He rubbed one eye with the heel of his hand.

Though he'd had all night to think it seemed like time had escaped him, and before he knew it he stood before his saddled horse. Just as he went to mount, he felt a weight on his leg. It was Lera. He gathered her up to his chest and inhaled the scent of her coarse fur. He looked to the front door, hoping she might have changed her mind and come to say goodbye, but the threshold was empty.

"I'll miss you, too," he whispered inaudibly into Lera's coat.

He let her slip out of his arms and watched her scamper back to the house before mounting his packhorse.

He had let Ashei slip out of his arms just as easily.


	6. Every Day

_A/N: This is probably one of my favorite installments so far. It's more cerebral than the last few have been, more like the first chapter, and I enjoy the ending quite a bit._

_Also, I incorporated a Wind Waker character, and a direct quote from him, for kicks._

_As far as when Ashei's side of the story will be published, I'll probably wait to do that until Shad's side is all finished, and, as this story continues to branch out and grow without my consent, that could be a while from now._

_Anyway! Please leave if review if you're so inclined. I am very appreciative of each and every one I have so far. So: Thank you!_

Every Day

The ride home was an uneventful haze; Shad had promptly shut down any attempt Auru made at conversation so he could reflect on his errors and torture himself for them. Her eyes haunted his nights as powerfully and tangibly as a real specter; they prevented him from sleeping or woke him forcefully if he managed to.

He woke breathless and clutching an imperceptible wound in his chest the first night he spent in his own bed. She had changed him. He was far from the person he was when he left, and the new man he was didn't know how to live without her.

Kroe's words came back to him again and again, pointing out his failures for him in case he forgot. Shad, for the life of him, tried to remember a memory that would ease his pain, but Ashei's face only conjured the injury in her expression and her furious parting words, and life before her seemed too worthless to remember. He wanted to see her smile, hear her laugh, feel her hand. But instead he was crushed by the bruising weight of her regret. He struggled with his mind all the next day, trying to find some way around the torturous memories branded upon him like an impervious callous. He didn't even get up to eat. He watched the sun crawl across the floor next to his bed with immeasurable slowness, exhibiting for his benefit the journey of the longest day he'd ever felt.

As though someone had dropped the bed, and him on it, from a very great height, he heard Kroe speak one last time.

…_Promises that you might not keep._

And what he had to do became very clear. He stumbled out of the sheets, grabbing what he needed from his desk with extremities that felt four times heavier than they should have.

_Every day._

The blank stationary stared skeptically back at him as he readied his quill. What could he possibly say? He remembered trying this same thing a season before, and burning every draft he scribbled in his cold hearth. But he had a promise to fulfill.

_Ashei,_

The pen stopped. His heart ran faster. He didn't know what she wanted to hear, what would curry her favor; he felt anxious over the presentation and reception, and over how he could possibly shape either of them, and it was paralyzing. He cast himself aside; he became single-minded, determined only to fulfill his promise with no expectations for himself. Otherwise, he feared, he wouldn't be able to do it. He only wrote what came without premeditation, and let the words write themselves.

_Ashei,_

_What can I write? What can I say? I know that a piece of paper can't mend what I saw in your eyes the night before I left. They've haunted me, and I can't rid myself of them. I've trammeled myself with questions, questions I can't find answers for. Why didn't I go to you that morning? Why didn't you come to me? Your father told me, "Love isn't always enough." Was he right? Was I a fool to think that I could love you with the ardor that I did and that it would be enough to sustain you?_

_I've tried without success to decipher exactly where my errors began. Was it when I first wanted you? Was it when I decided to go up your mountain? Was it later?_

_I dreamt a dream last night that your eyes were growing lifeless, and I only briefly saw the pool of blood in which I laid before your eyes woke me again, and when I woke I felt the wound in my chest from where the blood had spilled. It was so powerful, I'm not convinced yet that it was only my mind playing tricks in the dark._

Shad stared at the words his pen had made for a long time. Gingerly, he wrote the date, folded the letter, and threw it across his room into his dead fireplace. After he sat for a while he followed it, and placed his hands above the mantel to support himself while he stared at the envelope, now dusted with ashes. His head bowed between his bare, braced shoulders, like he was tensing for a whipping.

He went to his dresser and pulled a loose white shirt over his head, and then sat on the edge of his bed and rubbed his eyes. He saw her eyes again in the ensuing darkness behind his hands and flinched away from his own touch. He sighed; he would have no rest tonight. Again.

The envelope summoned him in an inescapable, voiceless whisper, and he went to it, like a begrudging slave to his master. He pulled it from the ashes and brushed at the coal-colored smears, which only blemished it further. He rang the bell for the building's caretaker, who informally doubled as his butler, and slipped the letter under the door. Not two minutes later he heard the unobtrusive steps over the hallway carpet and he knew it was too late to take the envelope back.

He turned down dinner when a voice offered it to him from the other side of the door without the graciousness he would've usually have mustered and spent the night in the cold of his unheated room, trying to look away from her piercing gaze. As soon as it was bright enough the next morning, he rose again to write. His inkhorn was only slightly blacker than the rest of the room, but the shadow of sunlight on the horizon lit his parchment just enough for his handwriting to be legible. It was easier to write than it had been yesterday.

_I couldn't sleep again last night._

_I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Do you know what else Kroe told me? He told me that if I stumbled into a marriage with you unprepared and wished I hadn't that you would know and it would ruin you. I haven't been able to shake this vision of you since then. You stand at the window, here in this very room—_

And when he glanced at his window, ocher light begin to stream in, he saw the terrible apparition of her and the wound in his chest split open again. He looked down, horrified, but he wasn't bleeding like he expected. He hissed at the discomfort and realigned his pen.

_I can even see you stand there now. You're trapped, the ghost of something beautiful and free, like you're formed of weak porcelain. You've no will, no desire, no hope. Broken, because I broke you. And it's haunted me, Ashei, because I realized the validity of his concern. I had the power to turn your future into your nightmare, and I never even considered it._

_I wish I had been bold enough to talk to you one more time before I left, only to get your mind on matters. Suddenly, your words have a thousand different meanings to me. I doubt my first interpretations; I don't know what you're thinking, or feeling, anymore._

He dated the letter, folded it, and slid it under the door before he could change his mind and tried to go back to bed. Her eyes, in their intense beauty, were behind his eyelids again, waiting for him to close them unsuspectingly that they might inflict a world of pain upon him. And they did. Their stare bore deep into him, and he felt as though he couldn't breathe through the burning sensation.

He wrestled with his fatigue and her eyes, all day and night again, and refused dinner a second evening in a row. That night his tormentors changed their tactics and trapped him in his dreams, rather than wake him quickly, so that, when he finally started awake in the middle of the day, he was covered in chills. He rushed out of bed to his desk again.

It was more than easy to write to her. It was becoming an addiction. These letters were his means of keeping Ashei close, even as she slipped away from him. He couldn't stand the thought of being cut off from her entirely, and so he wrote, even though he knew Kroe might not even have let her read them. He doubted her father would interfere like that. Or perhaps he didn't want him to, so he imagined he couldn't. His thoughts were less and less clear all the time.

_Ashei,_

_I dreamt of you again last night. It was my vision of you, but the pale, smooth planes of your face were cracked like a doll's, and your neck and shoulders were bruised like you'd been beaten. And you screamed and screamed at me, and told me never to lay a hand on you again, and I realized it was I who had reduced you to what you were. I expected to wake suddenly, as I have recently, but instead you kept me there and tore away the sleeves of your dress and the top of your bodice to torment me with the cracks and discolorations all over you. And as you wept and screamed you backed away from me, and your back touched a wall, and at the contact you shattered into innumerable pieces that could never be put together._

_It hurts me even to recall it, horrifying and vivid as it was._

_I wonder if it will please you to know how miserable I am._

He went to dip his quill again and saw a chip he hadn't noticed before on the lip of his glass inkhorn. It reminded him of Ashei's battered shoulder from his nightmare, and suddenly he couldn't write. He scribbled an illegible date and folded it and tossed it under the door.

He paced in front of his bed, stiff with agitation. He ran a hand through his unwilling, knotted hair. Ashei's eyes were there, again, when he tried to close his eyes for some peace. When he opened them, the chipped inkhorn was in his line of sight. With a growl of rage, he grabbed it from off the desk and flung it with all his might at the wall.

It shattered next to the fireplace, the glistening ink sliding down the wall like a sheet of blood.

He sat on the floor and watched it run its course. Eventually the beads thickened and hardened, giving the blackness covering his wall dimension and shape. Spangles of sunlight snarled on the broken glass below as the sun began its descent, blinding him, sometimes, with their white light.

He opened the side drawer in his desk and pulled out his backup inkhorn, another piece of parchment, and picked up his quill. He scrawled out a few things he needed and rang the bell.

The butler looked him up and down slowly when he handed him the paper at the door. There was a bill of no meager amount under his thumb. "I need these; you can divvy up whatever is left over however you see fit if you can get someone to go out for them tonight."

He took the paper genteelly and read the stubby list with remarkable patience. "Just ink and parchment, sir?"

"Yes, thank you."

As he went to close the door, the butler interjected, "And will you be taking dinner this evening, sir?"

"No."

"I see, sir. Very good, sir." He tucked the paper and the money into his pocket. "I'll see to these."

"Thank you."

Shad closed the door without grace. He spied himself in the mirror for the first time in a few days just then; he looked wild, with his hair a mess, his eyes ringed with sleeplessness, and ink splattered all over his face and the front of his shirt. He sighed and ran himself a bath, turning the water as scalding as he could.

After he stripped he submerged himself for a long time, keeping his eyes open under the water to avoid staring into her furious, striking eyes. He drained the tub and dressed, when the water got cold, and as he was making his bed for the monotonous distraction of it, there was a knock at his door. He opened it, expecting his ink and paper, but someone he didn't expect was on the other side.

"Don't be upset," she said placatingly before he could open his mouth, raising her hands in defense and walking past him into his room. "But James said you hadn't had dinner in days and he was worried. Are you ill?"

She felt his forehead. He sighed, "I'm not ill, Mother."

"No?" She searched his face, her hands knitting together. "What's the matter with you? You look emaciated. And your eyes! When was the last time you slept?"

"I don't remember," he admitted, offering the couch in front of the dark hearth with a gesture. The ink and paper was sitting in the hall by the door and he brought it to his desk.

She moved to the couch slowly, her eyes fixated on the black mess on the wall. She said, her voice much quieter, "It's cold as death in here."

"I'm sorry, I'll light the fire."

He could feel her eyes on him anxiously as he calculatingly placed the kindling and logs on the grate. He didn't want to drag her into this mess, too. He was miserable and too dependent on that misery to break himself of it for his own benefit, never mind anyone else's. She waited patiently, but even after the fire was healthily ablaze he wouldn't turn to face her.

"Won't you talk to me, please? Even a little?"

"I have nothing to say."

"Shad," she sighed. His name sounded like it still belonged to a child, when she said it. "Fine. I won't make you speak. But you need to eat."

"I've just not had much of an appetite the last few days," he said dismissively. "It's nothing."

"Shad—"

"I'll eat when I'm hungry," he assured her, a rare trace of impatience in his voice.

She was silent again. The fire snapped and he blinked away from it, and saw Ashei's eyes, and flinched. He thought of the absolute strangeness of the whole encounter: he, both leashed and reliant on the phantom of a woman's eyes, a woman who his closest family and friends didn't even know existed, trying to pass off his lethargic and devastated self as completely normal. It was like a story birthed of some witch's doing.

Finally, she whispered, "I'm just concerned."

"I know. But you needn't be."

What he truly meant to say was that she _shouldn't_ be, because he didn't wish her any detriment. He was both relieved and surprised when she didn't press it further. She informed him conversationally, "Mister Bandam is back in town."

"Bandam?" Shad's ears perked just a little. They had attended the college together years ago and grown quite close. He'd gone on an extended expedition just before Shad left the college as a student entirely. A smile tugged as the corner of his mouth at the memory of him. He corrected her softly, "It's Doctor Bandam, now, Mother."

"Yes, of course." She smiled, carefully wearing her social aura of informality. "He came looking for you, but James told him you were out of town. You should tell him you're back. I know he would love to see you."

"I will—" Ashei's eyes sprung to life jealously, and he reined his enthusiasm. "I should see him. Where is he staying?"

"At the Lanayru Inn, in town." His mother's eyes sparkled. "He's only staying the summer."

"I'll go see him," he promised, and she seemed satisfied.

"I'll leave you be, then," she ceded, and he showed her to the door.

He pecked her cheek goodbye in the hall and immediately set about making himself presentable, Ashei's eyes snarling possessively all the while. He made his way into the streets just as the sun was sinking in the west, and watched her eyes as they ghosted through the crowds, watching him from everywhere. The perpetual hum of the road gave way to a more buoyant clamor as he entered the Lanayru's tavern, and a doorman intercepted him to take his name.

"I'm looking for Doctor Bandam," he managed to convey over the din of the guests, and his host smiled comprehendingly.

A young housekeeper was summoned and led him silently to his friend's room. He knocked loudly on the dense wood of his door. After it swung open there was a brief impasse while Bandam made his assessment, and then he said,

"Farore, Shad, you look awful." Shad didn't have a response for that, so he let himself in with a crooked grin. Bandam gestured for a housekeeper, ordered dinner for them, and then let the door snap shut and joined Shad in the small parlor. He studied him for a moment, a wry smile on his mouth. "It _is_ good to see you again."

"You, too, Bandam," he said in earnest. "How was the expedition?"

"A complete success, of course," he beamed. "And my mother said there was no future for me in biochemistry."

"Congratulations."

"And what has you looking so half-eaten?" He stroked the stubble on his chin with his thumb, his eyes narrowing as he speculated. He uncorked the bottle of wine on the table and calculatingly filled their glasses half-way. "Is it a woman?"

Shad shook his head gently, plastering a smirk on his face. "No."

"What's her name?" He pressed.

He tried to object, "I said no!"

"And you're a horrible liar, Shad; I've told you that before to no avail." He accepted a bowl of stew with a sound of pleasant surprise when the housekeeper entered and brought over a tray, and then she served Shad. When she'd left, he continued, "That doesn't surprise me. Of course, not many things do. For I am a genius." He smiled more gently. "Tell me about her."

Shad stared at his steaming meal for a second, like he wasn't sure what to do with it. He whispered, "Ashei."

Bandam leaned forward, significantly more interested now that he'd heard Shad's confession. He pushed the goblet towards him encouragingly. "Really? Where is she from?"

"The mountains, of all places," Shad recalled, spearing a potato with his spoon.

He adjusted himself impatiently in his chair. "And?"

"And… I was an idiot." He shrugged, conquered, and attacked his food with his utensil, using more than the usual vigor. "We met through mutual acquaintance some time ago. Auru was going to visit her father this spring for a few days and I went along, hoping to win her favor. And I was clumsy, of course. But things were going well." He sighed, his brow creasing as he revisited how it felt to be loved by her. He confided, incredulous, "She had feelings for me. It was unbelievable and wonderful and new. And I knew what I wanted to happen between us. And then the night before I left I asked her to marry me."

Bandam coughed on a wedge of onion and dropped a piece of carrot, which had been teetering precariously on his spoon, back into his bowl. He looked like his dinner partner had just confessed to an assassination attempt on the queen. "You don't waste time, do you?"

"My mother doesn't even know she exists." He swallowed a spoonful of thick broth; it was warm in his throat and full of flavor. Eating wasn't unpleasant but he didn't feel any better for it, either. He would just have to remind himself to eat, for his mother's sake. He tried the wine and savored the burn as he drank.

"And what was her reply?"

"She said she would've accepted me if I'd asked earlier." He tried a potato and burned his tongue on its blistering center without complaining. It was a welcome distraction from other discomforts.

Bandam swallowed his enormous mouthful with wide eyes. "That doesn't sound so bad."

Shad whispered, "You didn't see the look on her face."

"Is that where you've been? Chasing after some mountain-woman the last few days?" Shad stirred his stew without looking up, not particularly inclined to participate in the conversation anymore, and Bandam waited behind the rim of his glass. Bandam's tone changed; he sounded like he was talking about his expedition again, about some kind of challenge or adventure: "When are you going back?"

"I'm not convinced she wants to speak to me ever again," he said, adamant; he was surprised at how vehemently his body protested to the idea of facing her.

He scoffed. "You're going to let that stop you?"

A long pause passed between them while Shad considered that. For the briefest moment he saw a possible future, one of many, of them together, she laughing again with him in the cool breeze of a mountain summer as she brushed his loose bangs away from his brow, and his heart accelerated. Just as quickly it was gone and his muddy stew was thickening in front of him. His gaze drifted back to Bandam's evenly, heavy under the brunt of the loss he felt when that future flashed out of his vision. He said huskily, "You can't know how badly I've wanted to change things."

"Then change them," he suggested simply, sitting back in his chair and pouring himself more wine.

Shad shook his head doubtingly, grimacing at the prospect, his eyes slipping away again, and then hesitated as an amorphous idea ebbed at his mind.

"You and I are men of science and exploration," Bandam murmured suggestively. "It isn't in our nature to let our futures map themselves. We could never be content with that. We go to our most wondrous discoveries, we don't wait for them come to us."

Shad peered at him thoughtfully from under his brow. She _was_ his most wondrous discovery, a concept only another explorer like Bandam could understand. And in so many ways, Bandam's words made perfect sense.

He stared at him for one final, incredulous moment. "You're saying I should go to her."

"Should you?"

He braced himself for the pain and then closed his eyes to think. But the pain didn't strike him. Her eyes were waiting for him, certainly, but they weren't so angry. He felt the electricity of her touch in his hand, like an intense jolt purposely given him to remind him; he saw the curve of her fingers and the amber and onyx of her profile in front of the fireplace; he saw a memory that hadn't happened yet of her face under his lips, so close he could breathe upon it, and the way the errant thought left him breathless made him open his eyes. He accused him quietly, "You already know the answer."

"Maybe." He was nearly finished with his stew by now and sipping the last of his second glass of wine, looking quite content. "But do you?"

"I don't know that I _should_, for her sake. But I will. I can't bear the thought of not having her."

"Or of someone else having her," Bandam ventured, and he flinched away from the thought instinctively, jealous anger welling up in its place.

He whispered, the anguish from before resettling in the pit of his stomach, "What do I say to her?"

Bandam shrugged. "Your presence alone might be enough."

"I doubt that," he muttered venomously.

"If you leave soon enough," Bandam dodged, distracting him neatly, "You can be back before I leave again to tell me how your story ends."

And so, suddenly, he was irrevocably talked into going to her as soon as he could find his way. After dinner Bandam showed him out and promised to keep in touch. The town was all aglow with lantern light as he made his way across town, lost in his own mind. He kept closing his eyes to watch Ashei's eyes, now that they were pensive and curious instead of bloodthirsty and vengeful. The sound of the fountain in the square, as he moved across the cobblestones, reminded him of the water running out from Graycrest, and the tiny firelights in the lanterns were like half-remembered reflections of the bonfire the night he'd held her hand for the first time. His heart raced as he thought of going back, both in exhilaration and in terror. And then it skipped a beat as something else startled it.

A sharp crack rang out in the night and echoed into nothingness, deafening him for a moment with its severity, and then there were screams and commotion as the people on the streets reacted. The shrill cries of startled horses and hooves and boots against the stones and the shouts of men calling for help and barking orders splashed together into an indistinct chaos as Shad searched for the source of the noise. He saw the smoke rise from the alley where he assumed an accident had occurred and was jostled by frightened people as they ran in the other direction. He stumbled towards it, drawn, as if Ashei, though nowhere nearby, had somehow been hurt by whatever explosion had everyone screaming. And then in his peripheral vision he caught sight, too late, of a pair of black horses towing a dark carriage barreling driverless in his direction.

More than he comprehended it, he _felt_ the impact as the horses and their load crushed him, and more than he heard them he registered the vibrations of bones snapping in his skeleton. It was a blurred tangle of inky shapes, the lantern light that reflected off them, and the single, vivid instant of clarity as he watched a shoed hoof come unswervingly towards his face. He was barely able to register the pain of the blow before he lost his grip on his consciousness.


	7. Dreams

_A/N: Here is chapter seven, for your examination. I'll try to get him all healed up by the end of chapter eight. :)_

_Please read and review!_

Dreams

The world was blurry when he came to. His body was heavy and numb, like he'd been left out in the cold for too long, but his skin burned and there was a deadened but uncomfortable pulsing through all of him growing more pronounced by the second. The dull throb, as his mind haphazardly began to clear, was concentrated on multiple points along his frame, but he was too disoriented to say exactly where with certainty.

"Hey, kid," said a familiar voice. He turned towards it blearily, but couldn't quite make his eyes focus on the person it belonged to. "Take it easy, honey."

Telma; Telma always called him honey. He thought he caught sight of her face, but his vision was going white in the middle and it was too difficult to use his peripheral.

"You're pretty banged up. But you can relax now; Borville is gone, the resetting is done. You did great."

She must have meant his bones. He faintly recalled some unclear dream with no color, and no sound except for his own screams and no feeling except for excruciating pain. He shuddered, as the reality of that nightmare sunk in, and his body protested to the subtle movement.

"Just rest." She reached out and brushed his hair away from his forehead and he flinched when her touch made the throbbing there intensify. He heard, before he slipped under again, "We'll take care of you."

The next time he woke, it was with a significantly clearer head. He was in his own room; he was bandaged up all over, and he felt like he'd fallen from Eldin Bridge. He fidgeted and groaned quietly as a thousand steely pains erupted at once in response.

Cool hands came down consolingly on his bare shoulder and a voice, a voice so much more astonishingly melodic than he remembered, reproved him, "Hold still."

He held his breath for a moment, afraid to glance at her for fear she wasn't really there. But he wanted it badly enough that he took the risk. She was sitting in a chair beside the head of his bed, her dark hair pulled away from her face and her eyes wearing an expression not like anything he remembered. He tried to say her name but taking the breath required sent another ripple of discomfort through his chest and he hissed as it caught him by surprise.

"Easy," she insisted again, bite in her voice, as she sat next to him on the bed to stare at him more firmly.

He managed, breathing more steadily and more carefully, "Sorry."

He swallowed the barrage of words trying to spill from his mouth and took a moment to stare at her, since she didn't look like she was going anywhere immediately. She was as perfect as he remembered, ringed in moonlight. More perfect. He whispered incredulously, still carefully measuring his breath, "You came."

"Yes. Of course I did."

"I thought you would be so angry with me," he said, overcome, wishing, more than anything, that he could sit up and take her into his arms. "Are you, still?"

She leaned minutely forward and her hand slowly traced him over his shoulder to his jaw and then his mouth, sending cool tremors all through his side and up his neck, and let her fingertips rest on his lower lip. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"That doesn't mean you aren't still angry," he whispered, nearly able to taste her skin as his words moved her fingers synchronously with his lips. The effects were anesthetizing.

"I might be, later," she conceded, tracing his cheekbone slowly just below his eye. "But not now."

He inhaled of her palm and a flood of desensitization numbed his pains again. "Not now," he echoed, and was perfectly content with that. He watched her for a while, quietly contemplating with half-working senses. "I was going to come to you. I'd finally made up my mind last night."

She smirked crookedly. "You wouldn't have gotten far."

"That was before—" There was a rush of images, memories of that night, of horses, the fiery whites of their eyes, and darkness and spangles of light, played too vividly to be mere recollection, and then it was just her again, bathed in noonday sun. "Before this happened."

She asked quietly, raking his hair away from his eyes, "What made you decide?"

"I already knew I couldn't live without you," he mused, trying to sort through his foggy brain. He hadn't noticed until then that it was snowing outside. Processing his thoughts was like swimming in murky water. "But I was torn. There was so much doubt. I didn't know if I was what you wanted, or if I was even good for you. I didn't know what I would say; I was afraid of facing you. And then I realized none of it mattered. I knew I wanted you in my life and whether or not I could have you was ultimately your decision. So I decided to stop trying to control it and throw myself at your mercy."

Abruptly, imperceptibly, the skin across her cheekbone fractured, sending a dark, spindly vein over her milky features. But she smiled. "I was waiting for you."

He whispered, his brow forming a hard line as he began piecing his surroundings together, "Ashei."

She pulled her hand away and, with a sound like cracking ice, the flesh on her wrist broke into miniscule branches of darkness. "Don't be upset," she whispered.

The room behind her drained away into a colorless, ashy memory, like an abandoned attic in winter, and her throat splintered. She was growing pale and the world behind her was melting as though it was made of wax. The sound of cracking ice kept on until the veiny braches on her throat and face met, forming one long fissure. And then the imaginary wound in his chest was bleeding him out again. With inhuman speed she was suddenly being pulled out of his reach, and in that same instant he sat up to hold her, ignoring his bones as they ruptured in protest, and shouted, in a voice of such fury he wasn't sure it could be his, "Ashei!"

The sun was filling his room and this time he was sure he was awake, because the pain ripping through him was too real to be faked. Even through the crippling ache of his head, he could make out the points along his body where he felt broken. He tried to whisper Ashei's name, but his voice was so raw from screaming that he didn't recognize the sound that came out of it.

"Hey, careful," Telma said soothingly; that much had been real. She leaned over him, trying to capture his eyes. It was easier to focus on her now.

"Telma?" he rasped, trying to make her stay in one place instead of multiplying all over his vision.

She nodded encouragingly. "How do you feel?"

He thought the question was cruel. He concentrated, so as to formulate as accurate an answer as possible. "It hurts to breathe."

She nodded again and explained gently, "You broke some ribs."

She wasn't getting any clearer; he realized his spectacles were probably crushed and that he wasn't wearing a new pair. He tried to sort through prior events, create a timeline upon which to rebuild the future that had been unexpectedly wrenched away, and kept coming up short. "What happened?"

"There was a delivery of bomblings." She sighed. She looked tired; she'd probably been up with him all night. "Something went wrong and a case exploded while they were unloading – no one is quite sure why. Three people were killed. It startled the horses and they took off."

She knew she didn't need to finish. Uninvited, Ashei drifted in and out of his thoughts. As badly as he wanted to, he didn't allow himself to linger on her so that he could deal with his current predicament; Telma would have him admitted otherwise, probably. He mustered a weak smile. "My mother must be frantic."

"Oh, I sent her home long ago," Telma muttered, returning his grin. "You've had a couple visitors; I'm sure they'll be back when they're hear you're more coherent."

He grimaced. "How bad was I?"

A peculiar expression crossed her features, but it was gone before she replied. "There's your ribs, and your right arm is broken; and the doctor is worried about your head injury."

There was a jolt of pure, undefiled panic as Ashei conquered his thoughts completely and without resistance. _His right arm_. He instinctively tried to flex his right hand, to see if it was true, and held the cry in his throat when the agony shot up his frame. He couldn't write legibly with his left hand.

"Link came by while you were out and left you something he called Fairy's Tears," she continued, "and they're doing wonders for you. You should heal quickly."

Not quickly enough. Another surge of pain tore through him and he gritted his teeth at the aggravation of it all. "Is this…" He couldn't find words to express his detriment, so he asked something else. "How soon until I can travel?"

Her soothing expression melted and immediately turned to disapproval. "Slow down," she commanded. "You aren't going anywhere for a while. You need to concentrate on rest. It will be a few weeks." She reached for a small bottle and held it as his lips. "Take a sip. This should help ease the pain."

The clear liquid tasted salty, like real tears. Slowly, the pain did numb: the pounding in his head dulled and the shooting pains turned into tolerable aches. It gave him enough clarity to examine his situation, and that made it so much worse. The frustration and the agony and the worry amalgamated into one overwhelming burden, and he felt hot tears sting in the corners of his eyes. He was tired, he was in pain, Ashei felt farther away than she ever had, and he wanted nothing more than to be able to forget Hyrule and everything in her, if only for a moment.

Telma gently wiped away tears from his temple that he hadn't realized had spilled; she whispered, "Everything will be alright."

Of course, she was making assumptions about what was upsetting him. There was no way she could be so certain regarding the outcome of the real crux of his anxiety. At once, his mind set itself to formulating new solutions, finding some way around his debilitating condition. He wasn't completely comfortable with the conclusion he drew. It was a private matter, but he had a promise to keep and couldn't see any other way to do it. "Telma?"

"What, honey?"

He swallowed to clear his throat, currently the consistency of sandpaper. "Will you write a letter for me?"

"A letter to Ashei?" she clarified gently.

"I promised her I would write every day," he whispered, recalling the hollowness in her voice and eyes that day with startling vividness. He ventured, studying her tentatively, "How did you know?"

Her voice was very soft. "You called out for her."

He stared at the ceiling, wishing he could look through it to something better, to her, but was suddenly void of imagination. Dust motes caught the sunlight and knotted glistening spangles out of it, as though they were flecks of glass, in his line of vision. "I was going to go to her," he lamented inaudibly; he felt the tears still spilling, but he didn't have the energy to be ashamed of them. The blurry lights danced, and he took and released a deep breath, ignoring the ache in his chest. "I didn't say goodbye when I left."

"She'll understand."

"I'm not so sure, but I've stopped caring."

He wished, absently, that he could sleep, so that Ashei might mercifully drift into his dreams. His thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door. Telma brushed the tears out of his eyes, left his side, and opened it; a muted voice asked, "How is he fairing?"

"Better," she assured him.

"I should have gone with him—"

"Come in. He's awake."

There was a pause, and then Bandam quickly came into Shad's line of vision. He hissed softly. "Nayru, Shad. You've seen better days."

"It's not so bad," he said, trying to put on a smile. Bandam's unchanged expression suggested he did not succeed.

"Why don't you go get some rest, Telma?" Bandam encouraged her. "You've been up all night. I'll stay with Shad."

Her eyes slid to Shad, full of meaning, and he nodded. She hinted just before she smiled at Bandam and disappeared into the hallway, "I'm sure Bandam's dictation is better than mine."

Bandam watched the door latched and then, taking Telma's seat beside his bed, repeated curiously to Shad, "Dictation?"

"I asked Telma to write a letter for me. To Ashei."

"Ah," he exclaimed knowingly, running a hand through his thick chocolate tresses. "Well I'd be happy to help, but if you want to wait for Telma to come back, I understand."

"There's ink and paper in my desk," he said, and went on, while Bandam heaved himself off the chair and began rummaging through the drawers, "I don't know what to write. I don't want to worry her."

"But she'll wonder why it isn't in your handwriting," Bandam pointed out, setting the writing implements on the writing desk and seating himself comfortably in front of it. He hesitated, chewing one lip when he threw a glance over his shoulder. "You don't suppose that will upset her, do you? That someone else has read this?"

The thought had occurred to him, but there was little he could do if he wanted to keep his promise besides remain discreet and hope for the best. Despite his unease, he managed to joke, "I'll protect you from her, if she decides to come exact her horrible revenge."

Bandam hesitated again, trying to envision with exactly what sort of woman his young friend could be so helplessly taken. He asked uncertainly, "Is that something she's likely to do?"

Shad was flooded with thoughts of her as he contemplated her temperament, her feistiness and blunt disposition. He loved those things about her. He couldn't keep a broad smile from his mouth, even though it hurt his face to grin so wide. "She might."

He shook off the thought and dipped his quill. "Right. So, how shall I begin? 'My dearest beloved'? 'Oh, glorious Siren'? 'Most bewitching seductress'?"

"I usually begin with 'Ashei,'" he muttered, unable to stare at Bandam as easily as he would've liked from the bed; his pillows were flattening.

"That's not very passionate," Bandam murmured disapprovingly, etching her name onto the stationary.

"I like writing her name," he mused, wishing his hand had the strength to write it now, that he might write it again and again while he was trapped, healing. He frowned, "Besides, I'm not sure she'd want me to call her anything else."

Bandam made a pensive sound, but didn't comment.

"Right, so. 'Ashei,'" he started, and then paused, his head utterly vacant.

"I've got that," Bandam chimed when he didn't go on.

"I'm thinking." The statement could really only be considered true if staring absentmindedly into a white void of nothingness could be called thinking. "I should tell her why I'm not writing myself, first."

"Good idea," Bandam encouraged, only loosely veiling his impatience.

"'I've injured my arm, so I'm dictating to a friend.'"

Bandam made an expectant sound, and glanced over his shoulder again when Shad failed to be forthcoming. The truth was he felt too self-conscious to gush the way he might have if no one else was reading, and the criticism wasn't helping.

He tried again, "'I hope you and your father are both in good health'—"

"Good Farore, Shad," Bandam muttered, begrudgingly dipping the quill, "You sound like you're writing an employer, not a lover."

"And what do you suggest?" he demanded, and then prattled as sarcastically and monotonously as he could, "'My dearest Ashei, you incite such passion in me that I've harbored notions of stealing you away'—"

"'To some secret grotto, that we might give ourselves over to our desire and I could do unspeakable things to you in the night!'" he finished approvingly, with too much zeal.

"Bandam!"

"I'll put it in the postscript."

He sighed and pointedly blotted out Bandam's scheming. He thought of Ashei, _only_ of Ashei, of what he would tell her right then if only she were close enough. He thought of his dream, of how easily the words had come then and how right they felt. "'I wanted to come to you,'" he began, and Bandam seemed more pleased with this line of prose. "'But my plans have been delayed. My letters will have to suffice until I can give you the apology you deserve in person.'" He daydreamed a little harder, imagining her sitting on the edge of his bed listening to every word. "'I wonder if you've read them. It would have been fair of you to throw them into the fireplace as soon as they arrived. I know how badly I've disappointed you.

"'I dreamt of you last night, again, and in my dream you asked what made me decide to come to you. The answer is I've stopped being selfish – or perhaps that's wrong: perhaps I'm being _more_ selfish, but I've fooled myself into believing otherwise so I can get what I want guiltlessly. I was so concerned with trivial things, like rejection…'" He trailed off tenderly, feeling exhausted and listless, like his blood had thickened with the salt he had drank, and then finished in a whisper, dreaming of her lips meeting his, "'How could any of that matter, when weighed against you?'"

He didn't add anything else when a fresh shock of pain moved pitilessly through him. Shad's heartbeat grew steadily louder, sloshing rhythmically in his ears, and the room turned whiter with the intensity of the pain. He heard Bandam's concerned voice through the rush of blood in his head, like a muted sound underwater, "Shad. You look like you're going to pass out."

He whispered, just before his body went weightless, "Maybe I will."

The hollow wail encompassing Shad made him feel like he was falling, and it wasn't until he landed jarringly on his sheets that he realized he was. Ashei was on the edge of his bed; he was dreaming, of course. His body couldn't have handled any kind of fall in its condition, otherwise, and Ashei wouldn't be at his bedside. Her eyes were familiar to him, but not pleasant: afraid, he had called those eyes before.

"What are you afraid of?" He whispered, moving cautiously to test the limits of his body in this world. It didn't hurt; he sat up, reaching for her hands, but she pulled them into her lap.

"I'm not afraid of anything," she insisted proudly.

His body didn't hurt, but he felt tired. He sigh ephemerally, reached for her hands anyway. She let him tangle his fingers in hers, pull their hands off her lap and let them rest on the mattress between them. He traced the subtle rise of the tendons on her hands, staring at them as he pondered. He couldn't bring his voice higher than a murmur, "You're lying."

"You should've asked me when you had the chance," she countered.

"I know." They sat in a weary silence for a while. The streets below were quiet, too, and then a harsh sound rang out, followed by a familiar clamor. He put his feet on the floor and went to the window, coaxing Ashei to come so he wouldn't have to release her hand. They stood overlooking the city, and he saw himself run down by the horses from the height of his room. He winced slightly, dreading waking up to that reality. He asked, watching the townsfolk swarm his fallen form, "Would you come to me, if you knew what had happened?"

"You'd like to think so, wouldn't you?" she accused.

He scoffed at himself bitterly, "I wouldn't dare hope."

"You have hoped," she told him more softly. "That's why I came to you that first night."

She put her hand over his heart; he was bleeding again, but he didn't feel it. He sighed dourly. "I'm tired of waking up."

A small smile played on her lips. She suggested, "Think of it as a way to demonstrate your fortitude."

And then she noiselessly turned to mist, the colored particles of her hovering where she had stood for a moment, before a gentle breeze breathed her away.


	8. Progress

_A/N: Now that Perseverance is finally finished, I can concentrate on this guiltlessly._

_Honestly, if it wasn't for Bandam this chapter probably would never have come to fruition. He is a very accommodating character. So, I thank him. I also thank everyone who took the time to review, you are awesome!_

_If you have a moment to do so, please read and review._

Progress

Shad woke to a knife digging into his head. He hissed and the knife was replaced by a rush of cold dampness.

"Din!" he heard Bandam curse at himself. "I told you I wouldn't do this right, Telma."

"Let me see," she breathed. Shad's eyes opened with an effort and his caretakers were standing over him, foreheads creased with worry. Telma was hovering with a washcloth. She said, "Sorry. I know this must sting."

"What in blazes are you doing to me?" he muttered weakly, half-heartedly. He really wasn't that curious; he only wanted to go back to sleep.

"Get him a mirror," Telma said quietly, and went back to dabbing his face.

Bandam came back with a glass and they gave Shad a moment to take himself in. He barely recognized the frightening, unfocused figure in the mirror. A gash, bordered with dried blood and purple bruises so dark they could have been ink, split his flesh from his hairline to the center of his left eyebrow and down his cheek to his jaw. That he even had his eye anymore was nothing short of a miracle. Without the relatively unblemished right side of his face to indicate it to him, he wouldn't have known the man was Hylian. Something like a shout built in his chest but escaped him in a sigh instead. His image rendered him wordless, but when his eyes slid away Bandam knew he had seen enough and took the glass away.

"It's not as bad as it looks," she told him evenly, her focus on her work. He still couldn't move his mouth to speak; she said instead to distract him, "Will you be writing another letter today?"

It had been exactly the right thing to say. His distress ebbed away and the void it left was filled with thoughts of her. They made him stronger.

And so for days Telma and Bandam wrote his letters for him, and he healed a little more with the departure of each message. The constant company prevented him from slipping into his overwhelming, obsessive behavior to which he had grown accustomed prior to the accident, but at night he habitually willed himself to dream about her. Auru would visit sometimes, and his mother. Link came by regularly to resupply them with his healing concoctions, and once he even brought a letter of condolence from the queen. The chills of spring subsided slowly as Shad watched from the confines of his room, a visual aid for his mental timekeeping; he knew, to the hour, how many days it had been since he'd left the mountain. Bandam brought him a new pair of glasses when it didn't hurt so much to wear them.

He sent Bandam to the library often to bring him compilations of Mikau-Lu's works after that. He read them regularly, committing the verses to memory, and sometimes added passages from them to his letters, though he always found his translations lacking. Sometimes Bandam and he would debate, while he rendered, which adjectives conveyed the thoughts best in Hylian, or whether literalness in the interpretation was more important than the syllabic agreeableness. Bandam always lost.

Some days were grueling. The nights when he didn't dream sapped his vigor, and the nights when he dreamt of things besides Ashei – things like careening horses or shapeless, inexorable pains – were worse. Sometimes his letters were little more than recollections, as much so that he would not forget them as for her benefit. Other times he was overwhelmed with anxieties, with visions of her abandoning her affection for him in favor of someone else, and he found himself spending his letters begging for her patience. He had been glad when it was Bandam, and not Telma, that was with him when he couldn't shake the thought that she'd stopped reading his correspondences a long time ago and all but forgotten him, and consequently suffered a complete breakdown. A good night's rest helped clear his mind and he kept himself from giving that far into despair again, though the frustration of that possibility still consumed him.

Shad was well enough to walk, though not completely without pain, when the Postman handed him a letter before taking his usual delivery. It wasn't from Ashei, but it was close.

"What is it?" Bandam asked lethargically, sprawled out under the open window, catnapping in the hot sunshine. He rolled over to stare when Shad didn't answer right away. He prodded, "Shad."

He was still staring at the envelope with a dry knot in his chest. Finally he remembered to exhale and he murmured, tearing at the seal as though he was ripping shrapnel out of a numb wound, "It's from Ashei's father."

Bandam tensed, half expecting Shad to fall to pieces, preparing to dive, in the event that he collapsed, to catch him. But he only stood, rigid, silently reading. He read it once, twice. Again. He crossed the room to the open window slowly and slid down the frame to the sill; the cool wind feathered him gently and the sunlight drenched him through as the words rendered him immersed again and again. He traced her name with his thumb where it appeared on the page. His emotional conflict at the contents of the letter left his expression blank.

_You can't be at a loss as to why I'm writing. Ashei is too stubborn to speak to you, so I will._

_I don't know what you're promising her in these letters of yours, but if you're ever going to come back to her, you had better do it soon. I can't even get her to say you're name, she's so intent on not hoping. But she paces at that blasted door when she knows the Postman is coming, and I've had gall enough to go into her room when she isn't home. Sometimes your letters are enshrined immaculately in her shelf, other times they're strewn over the floor; some are ripped in half and put back together again. I know Ashei doesn't seem delicate, and I'd never thought of her that way. But she is complicated. She isn't good with attachment; or, more precisely, she isn't good with loss._

_Ashei never cried when her mother died. I often wondered, when she was young, how the impact of my wife's passing would manifest itself when she was older. Now she treats grief like something that can be ignored indefinitely with no consequences. I blame myself for this frailty; I was so caught up in my own pain that I neglected to help her deal with hers. I can hardly imagine the betrayal she felt: one of her parents was never coming home and the other left her flailing in deep waters. I've earned her trust again, over time, and I don't treat it lightly. For whatever reason, she trusted you. It appears now, for reasons that are equally unclear to me, that she regrets it. But she can't dismember her attachment to you completely. I won't pretend to understand what in Din's name is going on between you, but I know my daughter well enough to see the war being waged inside her that she won't admit exists to herself._

_If, on the other hand, you aren't going to come back, let her forget you._

Shad moved after some time he'd been too rapt to measure, still living in Kroe's words rather than in the world. Bandam had started muttering something, and when Shad deciphered through the murk of his detachment that it was a request for information, he shoved the letter over his face as he walked by and continued towards the writing desk. Bandam, still reclining and too worried that a change in his breathing might cause his friend to crumble as easily as it might cause a rupture in a delicate soap bubble to move, very cautiously peeled the paper off his face and quietly read.

Shad gripped the quill, grimacing as he worked to ignore the discomfort sprinting up his arm. He stared at the empty sheet of paper on the desk, watching possibilities in it. Then he tossed the pen down and braced his arms on the back of the chair in front of him.

He whispered, his voice rough from the long journey it made from his thoughts, "I'm tired of writing letters."

Bandam, as he gently folded the letter, still wary of Shad's mental state, only answered placatingly, hesitatingly, "Ok."

He stared at Bandam for a moment, determination rising in his eyes and filling them like a sheet of thick mist caught up from a snowdrift by an imperceptible breath of wind, and declared, "I'm going to her."

"That's less ok," Bandam backpedaled, guessing, as he watched the immovable resolve form brick by brick in Shad's eyes, that he would've had an easier time reassembling him from another breakdown than he would trying to talk him out of his latest plan. He tried anyway, "She can wait a little white longer, Shad."

"No." He pulled his loose shirt over his head, ignoring the fire that blazed over his bad shoulder as he did, and insisted, "No. I won't make her wait anymore. I've taken too long already."

"We should've told them," Bandam muttered, running his fingers through his hair. "Her father never would've goaded you like that if he knew you'd just been crushed—"

"He wasn't _goading_ me—"

"That's exactly what he was doing!" Bandam protested, voice raised, his concern making his temper flare. "And if I thought I could convince Ashei through any kind of imploring to come here to end your misery, Lanayru knows I would've done it. If she really needed you this instant, she would've written you herself; and she hasn't had the decency to do that even _once_!" Shad flushed, his insides tensing dangerously, but Bandam wasn't to be interrupted. "I don't know what kind of love you have for her that you can ignore the callousness with which she's treated you the past few weeks, but I'll be accountable to Nayru herself before I let you try to climb a mountain for her benefit with a half-healed arm!"

Shad shouted, "Bandam!"

They both shut up. Shad sighed into the uncomfortable silence, and Bandam folded his arms defiantly. He murmured, "Telma won't let you go, either."

"I don't want to argue with you," Shad finally said, an apologetic note in his voice; it evaporated as he presented his case. "I don't expect you to understand her; I hardly do. But I've had intentions to leave for weeks and I can't justify not going to myself now. Can you understand that?"

"Yes," he sighed exasperatedly, "but I can't condone it, Shad."

"I'm not asking you to," he promised, pulling a new tunic over his head. Then he tossed an empty pack at Bandam, who made an unintelligible sound in the back of his throat at the recognition of it.

He begged, "At least wait until the morning!"

"What for?" He went on throwing things in Bandam's direction, wanting nothing more than to get out of that house, to get anywhere besides the idling place he was. "It will take the same number of nights, and it's warm enough." He stopped rummaging when he realized Bandam wasn't rebutting and went to him, held him by his shoulders. He whispered, "Please. I love her."

Bandam's impassive expression melted and he looked forlorn, suddenly. Shad's desperation fettered him; his only reply, once he had completely acquiesced, was, "You're going to make me face Telma by myself?"

Shad exhaled breathlessly, smiling a little. He said, very quietly, "You are a good friend, Bandam."

"No," he objected, suddenly stuffing Shad's things into his bag furiously, his argumentative tone at odds with his helpful actions, "I'm a _bad_ friend, a very bad friend!"

A knock at the door made them both freeze. Bandam, poised to shove whatever was in his hand into the bag, unfroze suddenly and followed through, startling Shad and causing him to reflexively call, "Come in."

Telma swung the door open, beginning a sentence as she did that she broke off at the sight of them. There was an awkward silence, and then her eyes narrowed and she accused, "What in Faron's name is going on here?"

"It's Shad's fault," Bandam summarized immediately.

He shot him a scathing look and then threw a pair of breeches directly into his face.

"Would you stop doing that!"

"Shad," Telma insisted soothingly, completely ignoring their immature antics, "you aren't well enough to travel."

"I am well enough," he answered calmly, apologetically. "And I have to go. This entire situation has gotten out of hand and I can't reconcile this lack of resolution any longer." He threw a bitter glance at his friend and muttered, turning to put the last few things into his pack, "Besides, Bandam volunteered to stay behind and face you so I could leave."

"I did _not_!"

"You're planning on going alone?"

"The weather is perfect," Shad said placatingly while he tethered his things. "I know the way and I've been all over this realm alone before. A little lost strength in one arm isn't as much of a disability as you say."

"Link would go with you," she insisted. "Take him. Please? It would worry your mother less; it would worry me less."

"This isn't Link's problem."

Shad turned. Telma was closer; she reached out and traced the white scar on his face that ran out from under his glasses, concern creasing her brow. She pleaded quietly, "You won't even take Bandam with you?"

He regretted their worry, but how weak was he if he couldn't bear to face Ashei by himself? He affirmed with the same quietness, "This is something I need to do alone." Telma didn't seem terribly moved; he turned to Bandam who was still kneeling where he had been catching things. "Bandam, make yourself useful: say something."

"Oh, I'm sorry, I was too busy packing your _bag_ for you to interject." He stopped making a fuss when he saw Shad's eyes, darkened with powerlessness and desperation, and sighed. "Telma we can't keep him here," he finally muttered. "He's chasing his greatest discovery."

She didn't quite understand the remark, but she understood the look they were both giving her. Finally she acceded, "You're both crazy. At least let me ride you the first part of the way."

"I'll ride with him," Bandam assured her.

"You're only going so I'll have to tell his mother," she smiled.

So she helped them make their final preparations in a hurry; she packed bread, cheese, dried meat, and wine, had their horses tacked for them, and had some of Bandam's things sent from the inn. She saw them off at the gate and they wandered to the northeast; they rode through the Eldin province towards the bridge for the better part of the day, crossed it, and then rode towards the province border into the evening. They finally stopped when shapes began melding together in the dark and set up camp, started a fire, ate some, and then laid on pelts and watched the stars. They listened for a long time to the sporadic chirping of the nighttime bugs, most of which were still silent in that early part of the season.

Bandam broke through the silence, wide awake. "Shad?"

He stirred before he answered. "What, Bandam?"

"You inspire me, you know," he muttered into the crisp air, not quite warm enough to belong to summer. "Doing what you're doing – going to the woman of your dreams even when there's obstacles in your way, including herself. I wish I had your nerve."

Shad chuckled a little, rubbing his good eye, and prompted tiredly, "What's brought all this on?"

"I'm madly in love with Telma."

Unable to help himself, Shad laughed aloud, startling some of the noisemakers into silence. When he regained his composure, he said, "It feels good to laugh. I should've known."

"It's not funny."

"Have you told her?"

"No." Bandam pulled the smaller pelt he had rolled under his head as a pillow over his face. He said, his voice muffled in the fur, "I want to."

"Ashei forced my confession out of me," he confided, smiling at his friend's admission. He imagined Telma and him together, more than just companions. He hadn't seen it before, but, as he looked closer, he thought they were well suited to each other.

Bandam's mouth was still full of pelt. "What did she say?"

"She called me names. And then she told me I was being too subtle."

"So I should just say it," he concluded.

"I think Telma would appreciate it if you were straightforward."

Bandam slid the fur off his face, which had grown hot under it, and laid there without putting it back under his head. He muttered, "I've never been in love before. Not this way."

Shad watched the night, dwelling on the fires in him and trying to imagine how anything that strong could possibly exist inside someone else, for someone else, without destroying them. It wasn't anything he could wrap his head around easily, so he stopped thinking about Bandam's future and tried to envision his own. He did dread facing Ashei, but he also knew how much he wanted her. He thought back to the first time he had taken this journey, a whole season ago. The outcome then had been just as uncertain as it was now, and he had been just as nervous about the whole endeavor.

If Bandam said anything else to him that night, he fell asleep before he heard it.

They took off again early the next morning. Shad was sore from sleeping on the ground all night and from subjecting his mending body to riding all day, but he kept it to himself. They talked about their uncertain futures, exchanged limited insights on the fairer sex, and argued about which route to take. He was glad for Bandam's company, at least for part of the way. They spent the next night in the Lanayru province and swam in Zora's River the following morning, changed into new tunics, and turned towards the pass. When they reached the mountain Shad sent him back to Castle Town, tempting him away with promises of Telma's affection when he seemed hesitant, and continued on his own.

His progress wasn't as quick as it had been when he was with Auru, which he blamed partly on his lack of familiarity with the route and partly on the mountain's self-contained weather patterns which, that particular day, called for bucketing rain. Distant thunder growled, as he rode, soaked through, somewhere behind the peak. He let his horse choose its own pace as they moved through the grayness, the sound of rain pattering everywhere filling his mind: the pine needles, the earth, the rock; the tapping ricocheted through the gulches and plains like an unending exhale.

Drenched, sore, alone, and sometimes lost, he somehow felt the opposite of hopeless. Being on her mountain again stirred him so that he dwelt less on his anxiety and more on his failures to her. She was the mountain, in his mind: cold, gray, sodden, beautiful, watching Hyrule changelessly, waiting for something worth moving for but never finding it. He turned his face up to the rain and the thunder quaked up from somewhere deep in the earth. The dark ribbons of color in the clouds reminded him of the fear in her eyes the day before he left and the debilitating urge to do away with it poured through him again. He reached out as he rode alongside a cliff and let his fingers run over the rough, weather-beaten stone, imagining he was touching unhealed places deep in her.

His promise to her father welled up in his mind. More potent than his own aggravation at himself for disappointing her was the impulse to repair the damage he'd caused. Power flowed to him from somewhere along with that desire, a strength that had never surfaced in him anywhere before but to protect her. He perceived her, then, the way her father did, with frailties no one else could fathom: Possessing the seeming impassiveness of a mountain, rooted, towering, no one would call her caged; but, as a mountain might desire, silently, voicelessly, to be as free and boundless as a river, she had unexpressed yearnings that no one would ever see or invent. Who was he to try to protect a mountain? He had no worthiness for such a task, but he was willing to blindly devote his life to that end if there was the remotest chance he was wanted.

It was difficult to gauge the hour through the cloud cover, but he guessed that it was just approaching evening when he finally came across the mouth of the village. He untacked his horse and stabled it, and then walked through the storm to Ashei's house.


	9. Previously Spurned Ideas

_A/N: Once again, I'm sorry this has taken so long. I blame Zelda Wiki, Metroid Wiki, and all the distractions of Niwanetwork! (End plug. Those are all "dot org," by the way. :D)_

_Thank you, Killswitch Engage, for your song "The Return," which molded this chapter into being._

Previously Spurned Ideas

When Kroe opened the door, he found the man who had broken his daughter's heart standing in the rain looking half-drowned. There was a brief impasse as they absorbed each other; Lera broke it with as much timidity as an avalanche, galloping through the house and into Shad's arms. He gathered her up, looking away from Kroe only briefly to do so. The thunder growled from some indiscernible place behind the sheet of white rain and the older man shifted, opened the door wider.

"I don't think I expected you to come," he said finally. Shad had no reply, so he only walked into the familiar room, scanning it with his eyes. It was empty. Kroe confirmed, "She's not here."

Lera, curled against Shad's chest, flopped in the cradle of his arms a few times without leaving them, and then sighed, tucking her paws under her arms. He thought of sitting down but was too restless to hold still; he paced with Lera as though he were trying to soothe an infant, taking off his streaked glasses and setting them on the table as he passed it. The fire roared, but he didn't feel its heat. He was chilled to the bone from a sudden coldness more penetrating than the rain. Kroe sat on the couch and watched him, impassive, half obscured in shadow.

Finally Shad grew too restless even to pace and he sat quickly next to Kroe, jostling Lera in the process who wriggled out of his arms petulantly. Her father's expression was emotionless, stony and unfamiliar as a stranger's, like the face of a featureless mountain. He asked, "Will she even talk to me?"

"I have no idea." He turned in the firelight, inspected Shad more carefully; the blackness in his eyes was unwelcoming and curious, a raven's gaze. "Where did you get that scar?"

Shad winced unconsciously, turning towards the window to stare at his reflection. It was prominent, but he hadn't felt self-conscious about it until just then; he wondered what Ashei might think of it and felt color rise in his face. When he remembered to answer, he said, "I was trampled by a pair of horses. I would've been here so much sooner if it hadn't been for that. I would've come weeks ago. But I couldn't ride. People convinced me to stay on and get well. But it's taken so long. It's taken too long—"

Surprise broke through Kroe's immovable expression and Shad broke off at the sudden familiarity of him, as though he'd only just then recognized who he was sitting next to. Kroe whispered, incredulous, "Why didn't you tell us?"

Shad paused uncertainly and then muttered, "I didn't want to worry her." He felt his eyes widen as he stitched Kroe's heavy, conflicted silence with the struggle of the last few burdening weeks. It was a question: "She couldn't have misconstrued my absence."

He answered, his voice partly flustered and partly disbelieving, "What do you suppose she would've begun to assume when she received letters but no other indication of your interest?"

He stood again, frustrated, irrationally angry, and paced to the hearth. He stared into the fire, ran one hand through his hair. He knew the question had been rhetorical, but he felt the need to answer it anyway. "It would make her doubt permanence. And my sincerity, probably."

"She hasn't said as much. She hasn't said anything to me about you at all. But it seems a logical conclusion, doesn't it?"

"So many stupid mistakes," he muttered absently, running his hand over the stonework in the hearth without seeing. He felt his heart pounding in his throat as he sorted through the implications of his decisions from a new perspective. A man writing to a woman with clear emotion and desire but little else; no measurable fortitude, no demonstrations to back up his promises; nothing but words that, in the absence of his action, became less and less believable until they were absolutely hollow. He could say he loved her all he wanted, but when his feeling was nothing more than words on a sheet of paper how could he expect her to full appreciate the depth of it? "When will she be back?"

"I honestly don't know."

Shad measured seconds on his heartbeat while he watched the fire; those turned to minutes filled with charged silence. He moved, stood at the window and followed the amorphous patterns the water shaped on the glass; he paced, counted eight strides across the room and checked his assessment again and again, from wall to wall, until the length of it was burned into his brain. He worried, he played scenarios, he dissected, he drove himself mad with questions. When he had completely exhausted himself mentally, he went to sit by the fire, and just as he eased himself down he scrambled back to his feet as the door swung open.

The rain hadn't let up any, but it was too dark to discern it against the night. Ashei, soaked, stopped at the threshold and stared detachedly, as though she were expecting to look right through him. Shad was struck again by her, by the boundless draw of her, of the eyes he knew so well. She didn't move; finally he did, wordless, breathless, and tried to read her as he closed the distance. There was a deliberate blankness in her expression, but her eyes were anything but void. She harnessed his gaze and drew him closer by it, as though by an unbreakable thread; he felt his heartbeat in his eyes. By some spellbinding or an unjustifiable need, he couldn't look away; he let himself burn.

Finally, he breathed, "Ashei, I—"

"Don't speak," she interrupted coldly, and the dangerous edge in her demand silenced him at once. Though his shock had muted him, she still commanded his eyes with hers, and they seared even deeper into him. Ashei set her jaw and finally broke their connection, turning her fury on Kroe. "What is he doing here?"

Kroe's lips parted while he found his voice, visibly caught off guard. He demanded, trying to match her stubbornness with debatable success, "What makes you think I have anything to do with it?"

"I'm not stupid," she hissed, her voice growing charged with emotion despite her earlier attempts at vacuity.

Kroe kept trying; against another opponent, his resolve would've been more impressive. "Do you want me to ask him to leave?"

"Would you?" she challenged icily.

"No."

Shad tried again quietly, futilely, "Ashei—"

She turned at him in a snake-strike movement and shouted, "Don't!"

But rather than shock him into another silence, her unguarded eyes sparked his determination. He saw beneath her anger in them and drank deep of what they revealed. He watched the vague impressions of fear and panic as they broke on the surface of her eyes like bubbles on boiling water, the more prominent shadow of a defensive perimeter bent to the point of snapping, and most perceptibly the intensification of her readiness to fight off an imminent threat even as her control was gradually slipping. Shad felt himself mapping that intensity and emulating it. Those glimpses of her weakness were causing a proportional increase in his strength, and untapped instincts to protect her in whatever way he could were pushing him forward in ways he didn't recognize. Frustration at her inability to be anything but completely self-sufficient merged with those feelings, and in consequence all his concerns and doubts about how this confrontation would end promptly evaporated.

As though reading the sudden impassiveness of his resolve in his hardening expression, Ashei switched strategies from paralyzing him with her eyes to abandoning the situation all together. She turned fiercely and marched back into the rain, slamming the front door behind her.

Shad growled to no one in particular, "She is totally impossible!"

Before Kroe could agree, Shad had already followed her into the downpour.

He called after her into the cacophony of the white sheet of rain as he attempted to close the distance between them, but her pace was even as she ignored him and she had one hand braced on her temple like she was using it to tune him out. When he caught up, he said her name again and reached for her shoulder to halt her progress.

She spun, batting his arm away, and took an intimidating step towards him. "What? What do you want from me?"

"I came back to tell you I'm sorry," he insisted ardently, desperate to use every moment of her attention that he could get to its fullest. "I'm sorry I left, I'm sorry I didn't tell you why I was gone for so long, I'm sorry I was too stupid and clumsy to see what I was doing to you and fix it sooner."

She stared, dripping hair clinging to the sides of her face, shook her head like she was disoriented and then rejected him breathlessly, "Apology not accepted!"

She tried to turn from him again, but the thought of losing her a second time motivated him powerfully, unexpectedly, and he acted without conscious permission. He threw one hand to take her by her waist and used the other to grab the wrist closest to him as she tried to shove him away with it. He had no doubt that she could've broken his hold, but she seemed too mixed-up to fight him off effectively and instead struggled in a way he could contain. She protested, outraged, "Stop it!"

"Ashei, please," he begged her, feeling her struggle out of his reach in more ways than one, "I know I've hurt you, but I want to fix it, I want to fix everything! Please let me try, let me—"

She argued fervently, still wrestling with his grip, "I don't want you anymore!"

Shad felt a cold jolt pierce his core, like she had driven a sword through him.

There was a gaping hole in his middle where her words had ripped him apart, but he was too preoccupied with looking at her, for what he was suddenly realizing might be the last time, to see it. He expected to fall when he felt his legs cut out from under him, but somehow he still stood. He was panting from holding her and from the rush of pain that he knew would crush him soon. She had stilled in his hands. He breathed quietly, searching her face in the near blackness through the rain, "Is that true? It would be fair of you to have forgotten me."

She looked startled. Her free hand was curled over a fistful of material at his shoulder that she had tried to use to shove him away before. They were almost standing as if to dance. She asked, dumbfounded, "Hadn't you expected that answer at all?"

"Yes," he admitted, the throbbing around his fresh wound beginning to break through the numbness of his shock and seeping like dread into his voice. "Yes, I'd expected it."

"Then why did you do this?" she demanded, shouting at him again with unfair ire and finally breaking his grip. His hands felt like ice in her absence. "Why did you come back?"

Hopelessly, he raised his own voice to meet hers against her stubbornness, against the rain, against the Gods; he shouted, "Because I love you!"

Ashei's expression melted, utterly disarmed by his words, and he heard her breath leave her.

He said again, barely audible above the rain, tenderly, cupping one side of her face with his hand without thinking and receiving no resistance, "Because I love you."

For a moment, she seemed stunned under his touch. Then, suddenly, her eyes, connected to his, brimmed with tears and spilled over, and he exhaled under the weight of a thousand different reasons: Because of his relief, because of how beautiful she looked, because he couldn't catch his breath with her so close, because he was being crippled by urges he no longer had any intentions of resisting. He closed what little distance was left between them, free from nervousness or hesitation. He weighed her reactions as he approached her more intimately: the subtle ease of her shoulders, her bated breath, the moment when her eyes finally closed. He drifted as close to her as he dared, only stopping when he felt his lips graze hers.

He murmured again against her lips, each word making his brush them, "I love you."

Her mouth parted under his and her breath shuddered out, but her eyes were still closed. Then he let his own heavy eyes shut and took her mouth in his.

The time and the season and the rainstorm all blurred together into insignificance and dissolved behind him, as he lost all ability to focus on existence outside this pivotal moment, as he was completely consumed by his need to live in this second, this experience, with his entire body and mind. He gently gathered the material of her shirt that hung at her hip bone and pulled her closer by it, immersed in the sensations he was slowly processing. When his mouth moved, hers moved with it in a pleasurable, alien synchrony. Her hands had slid onto his shoulders, and when he combed through the soaked hair at her temple with one hand she knotted her fingers in his hair and raked them up his scalp, creating a new web of phenomena that threatened to cripple him. He was falling, and yet he had never felt so grounded. A sound left him, and then they were apart, and she was hugging him close, panting, her face resting on the side of his neck.

"If you _ever_ leave me again—" she threatened.

He was curious how that sentence would end, but he interrupted to promise her, tightening his grip around her waist for emphasis, "I won't."

She only breathed in his arms for a moment, but it sounded as though her breath wouldn't come to her. Then she turned her face gently into him and said against his ear, "I love you, too."

The intense pleasure it had given him to say those words to her paled in comparison to the entanglement of light and fire she sent spiraling into him when she said them. He pulled her away so he could look into her eyes again in the dark and begged, "Then marry me."

She looked defeated, and it made his determination falter. She sighed, "I can't."

He stopped briefly, weighing his options. He brushed her bangs aside while he thought, searching for answers to a thousand questions in her eyes and not finding any. Finally he just asked, "Why?"

She shook her head minutely, put her fingertips on his lower lip before she answered. "I can't just leave him."

The feeling that washed over him wasn't unlike landing on the ground from a high jump. He took her hand from his mouth and kissed the back of it while he mulled. He wasn't going to leave without her, that much was certain. But he couldn't ask her to abandon her father, either. "Then I'll stay here."

A breathless smile flashed over her face for an instant, but she put it away. "You hate it here."

"I don't _hate_ it here," he tried to reason, but she threw her hands up, suddenly frustrated, and turned away from him to walk in another direction.

She said exasperatedly, "Shad! Try to be serious."

He caught her hand as it came back down so he could hold it while he walked beside her and insisted, "I am being serious."

She stopped walking just as suddenly as she had started and he stepped in front of her again. "No," she said, so quietly the rain nearly drowned her words out completely. "I want to go with you."

"I can't make you choose between us," he told her, his mind being pulled apart by his warring euphoria over her reciprocation, disappointment over their circumstances, and concern over how increasingly soaked she was becoming. He decided to just be happy that he was with her and let his other emotions wait on the sidelines for their turn.

Suddenly her voice was curious. She asked quietly, "Why were you gone for so long?"

"I was trampled," he answered dismissively, more concerned with her conundrum than those sorts of details. He steered them back to her devotedly, "I'm not leaving again without you."

Ashei studied his face in the dark and then rain for a while before she said, pulling him along by the hand towards the house, "Come inside with me."

She paused at the door to turn into his arms and kiss him again, and he put one hand on the doorframe so he wouldn't fall off the stairs from the intoxication of it. She held his face in her hands, using her position of control to explore his mouth uninhibitedly. When she finally released him she sighed and turned the doorknob, heading into the house, and he floatingly followed.

"Put on something dry," she commanded as she disappeared down the hall while he closed the front door.

Shad took his pack and changed in the room where he had slept before. When he returned to the hallway he heard soft murmurs coming from Kroe's room; he took his glasses from where he had left them on the table and set himself on the couch near the fireplace to wait for a verdict. Lera sprinted to him out of nowhere and curled on the cushions between him and his arm. He lived the encounter over and over again: the release in her expression when she had cried, the feeling of her against him, the chilling and yet warm sensation when she said she loved him. Through his euphoric ruminations, the implications of what had transpired managed to break into his thoughts.

Ashei wanted to be with him nearly as much, if not entirely as much, as he wanted to be with her, and regardless of the decision she made he wasn't going to separate them again. Hypothetically, he could be married soon. That hadn't struck him as weighty before – being with Ashei felt as right and as natural as breathing – but just then he felt the immensity of that. Notions of "true love" and "destiny" and other previously spurned ideas flooded through him unexpectedly. Soon he might be a husband to her, and she might be his wife. He could hardly wrap his mind around the tangibility of the idea. For all his pining and proposing, he had never felt the reality of it until that moment. It frightened him a little, but he decided that it felt good.

Finally Kroe's door opened and Ashei came out alone. She had been crying again. He stood when she came to meet him and she wrapped her arms tightly around him when he accepted her into his waiting arms. She didn't speak for a long time, gently brushing the hair at the nape of his neck with one hand while she was tangled in her own thoughts. Finally she took a soft breath against his shoulder and said, "I'll go with you."

Shad pulled away slowly to gauge her expression and measure how much of a sacrifice it was for her to utter those words. But she didn't look deprived, she looked decided.

"Yes, I'll marry you."


End file.
